Drake, Josh, and Megan in Graceland
by schillingklaus
Summary: Megan tries to make up for having destroyed Drake's latest relationship, but she refuses to make a dangerous deal with Mindy. Finally, Drake turns out as the reincarnation of Elvis Presley.


** Drake, Josh, And Megan In Graceland**

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**Klaus Schilling**

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**Rating**

PG-13

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**Disclaimer**

iDo Not Own _Drake & Josh_ or any other show or works of art used for this noncommercial story.

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**Abstract**

Genres include supernatural, fluff, family, adventure, mystery, drama, friendship.

The story occurs in the identified universe of a huge variety of current or past live action shows produced for _Nickelodeon_ channel, including, but not restricted to, _Zoey 101_, _The iCarly Show_, _Victorious_, _Drake & Josh_, _How To Rock_, _Big Time Rush_, _Unfabulous_, _Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide_, _True Jackson VP_, _Supah Ninjas_, _How To Rock_, _House Of Anubis_, and makes heavy use of a variety of members of their casts.

The plot takes off with the canonical end of the plot of _Drake & Josh_.

It ignores the movies produced past the main production.

At the same time, _Zoey 101_ is in its third season (details are found in footnotes due to the unclear natural order and timing of that season), _The iCarly Show_ has not yet started, _Unfabulous_ and _Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide_ are already post canon.

Megan regrets having destroyed her brother Drake's blossoming relationship with Carly Donohugh — a guest character fron _Drake & Josh_: _Who's Got Game_ and _The Storm_ with a surname taken from the same actress's rôle in third party owned _Legally Blondes_.

Mindy Crenshaw wants to make the pupils of Pacific Coast Academy, where she had been a student gofr a few weeks, pay dearly for having ruined her plans of taking over the world.

Megan refuses to help Mindy, so the latter tries to get her remote relative Nevel Papperman involved. But the latter shows remorses in the last moment and turns accidentally addicted to Megan.

Mindy's wrath is still to be feared by everyone at Pacific Coast Academy of which Nevel is now a student.

In the subsequent adventures, Nevel has to fix several wrongs in the life of Pacific Coast Academy students and Megan speculate that Drake is the reincarnation of rock-legend Elvis Presley.

The story is told and commented by Nevel.

Couples include Megan Parker – Nevel Papperman, Joshuah Nichols – Stacey Dillsen, Drake Parker – Lisa Perkins, Walter Nichols – Coco Wexler, Audrey Parker – Gavin Mitchell, Helen Baxter – Gustavo Rocque et alii.

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** Acknowledgements**

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The story is written for the following _Livejournal_-communities: One prompt per chapter Prompt for community _Philosophy 20_, and prompt _Grace_ for community _10ILove You_

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**Table of Contents**

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1::Pilot

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1.1::The Boobs

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1.2::One Girlfriend For Drake

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1.3::Megan's Remorses

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2::Persuasions

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2.1::Toplin Wheeler

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2.2::Talking To Carly Donohugh

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2.3::Paige Howard

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3::Spin City Records

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3.1::The Beginnings Of Drake's Band

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3.2::Manager Josh

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3.3::Makes Me Happy

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3.4::A Big Mess

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3.5::Claire Sawyer, Future Lawyer

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3.6::Gustavo Rocks

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4::Grey Is All Theory

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4.1::I Am Paige From Colorado

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4.2::Arrival At The Airport

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4.3::The Car Trip

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4.4::Physics Classes

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4.5::The Anti Gravity

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4.6::Breaking Down

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5::The Symphonic Centre

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6::Looking For A Way To Megan

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6.1::Return To The Emerald City

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6.2::Wendy Gellar

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7::Godless Boys

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7.1::Lance Rivers

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7.2::Logan Reese

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8::Visitors' Day

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8.1::Maybe PCA

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8.2::Back At PCA

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8.3::The Interviews

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8.4::Conclusions

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9::London is calling.

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10::As A New Student At PCA

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10.1::A New Life

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10.2::Left Behind

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10.3::New Student James

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11::The Orphic Priestess

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11.1::Canasta Club

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11.2::Choconuts

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11.3::Finally Megan

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11.4::Stacey and Josh

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11.5::Spit And Swallow

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12::Quinn's Demise

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12.1::DAKA wreaks more havoc.

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12.2::The Stalking Stallion

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12.3::On The Horse Ranch

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12.4::The Most Evil Seducer

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13::Boots are made for walking.

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13.1::Charity Walkathon

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13.2::Clackers

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13.3::Mile After Mile

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13.4::The Cosa Nostra

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14::The Return Of Vince Blake

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14.1::The Expelled Quarterback

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14.2::The Jock's Revenge

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14.3::Vaccaro's

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15::Parallel Dates

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16::Vertigo

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16.1::Coffee Cart Crash

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16.2::Lame Science Classes

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16.3::Michael's Phobias

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16.4::Doheny at PCA

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17::The Wake Of Junior Prom

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17.1::Production Of Prom Outfit

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17.2::Olivary Biallo

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17.3::The Switch Stick

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17.4::Textile Creation

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17.5::The Buffet

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17.6::Mindy's Threat

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18::Junior Prom Night

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18.1::Let the music play!

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18.2::The Party

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19::Drake is Elvis.

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20::Finale

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20.1::Gustavo's Purchase

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20.2::Wedding In Graceland

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20.3::Conclusion

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** Chapter 1. Pilot**

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** 1.1. The Boobs**

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Hello, my name is Papperman … Nevel Papperman, from the emerald city in the rainy state of Washington commonly known as Seattle.

Now I will tell you the story of my amazing wife Megan Parker, a girl who had spent most of her life in sunny southern California, but this had never spoiled her cold and analysing mind in any way. At the beginning of the story, Megan was just a middle school girl from San Diego with two elder brothers, no, one elder brother named Drake and one elder step brother named Joshuah Nichols, both about six or seven years older than Megan.[[1]]

Drake was an utterly reckless jerk and teenage rock idol of the most perverted sort, changing girls faster than his underwear.

Josh was naturally more of a mixture of a withdrawn science nerd and an artist with basically one woman for life, but since the marriage of Drake's mother Audrey and Joshuah's father Walter, he had tried to emulate his step brother and become cool.

Megan was embarrassed by both of them, and she had found a great word to designate them: "The Boobs". The two unworthy guys needed to be treated harshly with a series of more or rude pranks in order to make them see what an unspeakable embarrassment they were.

Maybe some day, there would be some light at the end of the tunnel, or maybe, there would noy, but the fight had to go on.

Back then, Megan and I did not know about each other, and this would occur only later in our lives.

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** 1.2. One Girlfriend For Drake**

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As aforementioned, Josh had originally believed in the "one girl for life" motto, and this unique girl happened to be my second cousin Melinda Crenshaw, a fellow high school schudent at Drake's and Josh's high school Belleview. Mindy was a nerd like Josh, but, unlije Megn's step boob, she stood up for what she believed in and did not hide behind stupid prejudices. Mindy had always been the number one in the honour roll at her school, followed by Josh, something which must have hurt him quite a lot. She had expecially beating him in each and every science fair.

Alas, Drake and his recklessly promiscuous demeanour had alwayd been standing between them. Mindy had jumped through burning hoops in order to attract Josh'a attention, even to the degree getting herself — as we shall see later — suspended from Belleview[[2]], but he had ignored her in the first place. And even when they were a couple, the troubles had just started, usually caused by Drake and his ideas of coolness which had completely corrupted Josh's brain. Finally, Drake's ruthless demeanour had also lead to Josh and Mindy breaking up[[3]], something that was probably inevitable.

Only then did Josh try to become a reckless womaniser of the most disgusting sort, and he even dared to challenge Drake in a bet with the goal of dating as many girls as possible in just a limited frame of time.[[4]]

And Josh had actially won that bet, as miraculous as it seemed, because just in this very moment in time, Drake had come to know a new girl, Carly Donohugh, two years younger than Drake and Josh at that. By the way, do not confuse this Carly Donohugh with some Carly Shay, a cousin of Megan whom I will be forced to talk about later on. For the first time in his life, Drake had tried to impress that one girl who was working part time in a music shop in ndowntown Seattle at the cost of forsaking on all the others. Drake had to struggle hard in order to convince Carly of being serious and honest, and he finally succeeded, but, of course, the bet was lost.

Alas, Josh had just won the privilege to sleep in Drake's bed, a top bunk, which got him hurt badly as he was not accustomed to it, so the bet had finally been for naught, given that Josh felt crappy for having cheated on Mindy, inspite of being officially split, proving that he was still missing Mindy badly.

A few weeks later, Drake's band was supposed to give an open air concert[[5]] in southern California, and Josh — unpaid manager of the band inspite of not understanding much about rock music — had organised a party and a bus trip for the fans. The weather, predicted by Josh's father Walter, was supposed to be nice and bright, but the weather frog was an incredible goofball and had failed miserably, in other words, it was raining cats and dogs, the worst rainstorm hitting the southern Californian coast between Santa Barbara and San Diego since … noone remembers.

The concert and the bus trip had to be cancelled, and the fans were stuck in the residence of the Parkers and Nichols for two days.

Carly Donohugh had been one of the members of the party, but there had also been two of Drake's former girlfriends Lucy Robson[[6]] and Christine Overbrooks[[7]]. This was hardly evitable due to the huge density of Drake's ex girlfriends among the female teenage population of San Diego. And against Drake's will, Megan had arranged Carly to come to sit next to Lucy and Christine, apparently in order to annoy Drake, but there had obviously been some deeper sense.

At the highschool cafeteria of Belleview, there were not just dozens of Drake's ex girlfriends, but they also maintained a table reserved for their ilk, and of course they used to talk most of the time about Drake. But the boob was not aware of it, as he was too blind to see what was going on behind his back, and he was busy getting his band organised.

Of course Lucy, Christine, and Carly were talking most of the time about Drake, just as the girls did in the cafeteria, but this time, Drake had got the opportunity to watch and listen to them, and precisely this had been the reason for Megan's operation. It was necessary for Drake to see and finally, if only possible, to come to a thorough understanding of both sides, his own as well as that of his girlfriends and his ex girlfriends.

During this conversation, the girls had come to agree that Drake was certainly the most proficient kisser among all the boys they knew, but now they asked him who was the best kissing girl. Drake's reaction must have been disappointing especially for Carly, as she had beyond any doubt expected to be the best kissing girl in Drake's eyes. The two of them had already talked in exhausting depth about the philosophy and more techniques of kissing when they had started dating. For example, Carly had admitted to knotting regularly cherry stems with her tongue in order to hone her kissing prowess. And now Drake just evaded the question and told the girls to ask a real professional, some actor and musician who happened to be one of his idols.

Anyways, for this reason, Carly Donohugh had stopped dating Drake and made him drop back into his old habitual promiscuity which had already gotten him into lots of troubles and would not stop doing so for the next time.

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** 1.3. Megan's Remorses**

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Megan had hitherto had a really dubious opinion about Drake's promiscuituy, as, on the one hand, it was annoying to keep track, but, on the other hand, she was often admired for such a "cool" brother by her fellow pupils, as opposed to Josh who had caused her a lot of loss of popularity. But until then, she had not seen the other side of the medal, the one of a trashed or cheated girlfriend of some sort.

This changed a few weeks later when Megan had believed to have found her first boyfriend, although she had been used from the get on. The boy I am talking about is Cory Matthews[[8]]

Really, Megan was addicted to some Japanese candy, and Cory was one boy with connections to get at them.

The windy creep abused that mercilessly in order to date several girls at the same time, one of them being Megan, and none of them were aware of the other.

Fortunately — and Megan Parker was very scarcely using that word in the context of deeds committed by her elder brother — Drake had been opposed to this relationship from the very moment in which he had come to know about it, and he had disrupted it as soon as possible. Cory had trashed Megan — or so he claimed — when he saw that her brothers were incredibly stupid. But really, he had got enough other girlfriends to be able to oick those without protective brothers.

Walter had talked Drake and Josh into getting Cory to give Megan another chance, and the boobs had to pay with their pants and bribe Cory, but then they saw him with Monica Chance[[9]], one of his other simultaneous girlfriends, and intervened again. Stupidly, they did not consider that Cory was skilled in karate, and they got their butts kicked bleeding when trying to make him pay — as they claimed — for having cheated on Megan or — what is more likely — for wanting their pants back.

If Drake had really acted merely as Megan's protective and caring elder brother, his morals were exhibiting blatant double standards, for his attitude towards girls was not much different from Cory's.

But Megan had now seen that girls suffered from jerkish attitudes, and she knew that Carly Donohugh had been a great chance for Drake to become honest to girls and refrain from purchasing them cheaper for the dozen and trash them the day after. For that reason, she regretted having contribute to destroying Drake's and Carly's relationship, although she had just tried to make Drake acquire some in sight into the other side. She knew that Drake needed one girl to stick to, and this task would be a really tough one.

Was it possible to get Carly Donohugh — who had indeed got quite a few things in common with Drake and would understand him a lot better than many other girls he had ever dated before — to return to Drake? Certainly, trying to do so the way Drake and Josh had tried to get Cory to give her another chance was not exactly the right method to follow. But was it possible for Megan to stalk and spy on Carly for that avail in order to check whether she had no other boys besides Drake? Megan was able to do so, she had spied a lot on Drake and Josh in her life time, but she knew that this was not ecessarily goig to help Carly regainig confidence in Drake and his family.

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** Chapter 2. Persuasions**

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** 2.1. Toplin Wheeler**

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Not much later, the next boy was hitting perversely on Megan, and this time, it was a seventh grader named Toplin Wheeler[[10]]. Megan had certainly learned from the most abominable disaster with Cory, and she was npt going to jump from the frying pan into the kettle with boiling water.

And now she had been invited by Toplin to the party of the sixteentrh birthday of Toplin's brother Thornton[[11]], and it was not just an ordinary birthday party, no, it was a "sweet sixteen" party organised and broadcast by one of the west coast's most popular teenage shows. Being invited to the birthday party of high school kids was certainly a big coolness accelerator for a middle school girl like Megan. And thus she accepted the whole thing, inspite of still having doubts about Toplin.

Drake and Josh had been invited to the same party, rather, Thornton had only wanted cool Drake, but he was forced by his mother to invite uncool Josh as well. Alas, Drake screwed it all up because he made out with Thornton's girlfriend Maria Cruz[[12]], a racy Latina. Drake had not known about this, but he had not cared to ask beforehand, rather he just trashed his mind and jumped head over heels into the next turmoil. This showed that just a few weeks after having been left by Carly, Drake had assumed business as usual.

And this made Megan very much worried, and she knew that she had to act pretty fast in order to save Drake from the next dystopia.

Drake had been uninvited from the birthday party as a consequence of his inappropriate adultery, and so had been Josh, as he was now no longer a **necessary** evil. The jerk tried to bribe his way back into the superawesemome sweet sixteen party by giving Thornton a valuable disk of his favourite band. The gift was accepted, but Drake and Josh were still locked out, period.

The organisers of _Sweet Sixteen_ had hired the cast of _Galaxy Wars_, a science fiction action drama show produced by Hollywood czar Malcolm Reese[[13]], in order to show up in their original costumes and replay one of the battles from the movie — probably the highlight of the whole birthday event. Drake and Josh had robbed two of the cast members in order to sneak into the party and get Drake's record back.

Megan was amused because Drake and Josh looked so ridiculous as space warrior, yet she had to do something about it.

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** 2.2. Talking To Carly Donohugh**

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Unfortunately, it was not an option for Megan to tell Carly Donohugh that Drake had been all depressed since their break-up, and that he was not looking at other girls at all. Sometimes — or so had megan expected — stories like that get ex girlfriends to grant a second chance, but in Drake's case, their was a cinema full of witnesses clarifying that Drake had been merrily hitting on the hot latina.

By the way, Maria had lost her interest in Drake pretty fast, and she just kept on moving on to the next boy in the queue, like an island hopping troop of marines.

Megan was now forced to decidse whether to give up on this anchor or whether to keep on hold on tight. She was one last time trying to persuade Carly Donohugh, thios time by telling her the truth. Alas, Drake's ex-girlfriend had not only heard from Maria Cruz, she had also talked with Mindy Crenshaw, and the latter had done everything in order to make Drake look more dishonest and more perverted than anyone else had ever been able to dream of.

Megan understood that only Mindy was able to get Carly to reconsider anuthing at all, and as she was also up to getting Josh and Mindy to make up, as without someone like her, Josh was inevitably going to take the same railway as Drake Parker, and these prospects were by absolutely no means bearable for Megan.

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** 2.3. Paige Howard**

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Megan had always had her troubles with Mindy, for really complicated reasons. She had made Drake and Josh believe that she hated Melinda Crenshaw because she made Drake's and also Josh's life miserable, and Megan considered that as exclusively her own job. But truth is that Megan had never tormented Drake and Josh as a self purpose, it was just all about teaching them a lesson, or one lesson after the other.

Megan had nevertheless accepted Mindy as a future step-sister-in-law, for she was a counterweight to Drake and probably able to keep him from following the jerk into a fate infinitely much worse than death, videlicet the loss of his identity as a nerd and a freak. Josh is not born in order to be cool and popular, this just was not his dharma, as the authors of the snscrit philosophy would have put it.

Mindy was not exactly pleased when seeing egan show up in her apartment, but she could not help it. Deep inside, Mindy was still longing for Josh, just as Josh was horribly envious when seeing Mindy anywhere near other boys[[14]], but the scares of Drake's rejection were incredibly deep. But there was something for Megan to do in order to change my second cousin's mind once again and go back to Josh, and also to persuade Carly Donohugh to give Drake yet another chance.

Mindy had been a regular participants of science fairs, as aforementioned, and she had already made it very far. And just a few days before she had indeed won the national science fair, but she had been using a pseudonym, videlicet Paige Howard[[15]].

Now Mindy was invited by an elitary boarding school near Los Angeles named Pacific Coast Academy in order to present her invention, a universal power generator. And there was one problen, more precisely, Mindy had already spent some week at that excessively snobbish prep school enrolled under a fake name, and she had caused a lot of trouble[[16]].

Her archenemy over there had been a blond Mary Sue named Zoey Brooks, probably a sophomore by then. Zoey had back then designed a very fashionable backpack, and Mindy had tried to copy it and sell the counterfeits, making lots of from it. She had been caught and punished again, and now it was time for inflicting revenge. Mindy had hated Zoey in particular because the living barbie doll was a big fan of Drake and she had even once got him to perform with his band at Pacific Coast Academy for free[[17]].

On the other hand Mindy had never desisted from the business with plagiarised backpacks, she had just stopped selling them at Pacific Coast Academy. But Zoey — or so was Mindy's creed — needed to pay deerly, anyways.

And there had been another rival, Quinn Pensky, one of Zoey's best friends and a possibly more gifted future scientist. Back then, this smart lass had cultivated a new fruit tree growing a mixture of apples and bananas, known as banapples. Mindy had gone pale and tried to sabotage the experiment in some way. But she had not got the time to complete this because she had been caught for the plagiarism and expelled again.

Mindy expected Megan to assume the fake name Paige Howard and show up at Pacific Coast Academy in order to present the universal power converter.

Megan gasped, as she was not necessarily willing to appear as a science geek girl. She liked book knowledge about science, but she was definitely no person to make great inventions.

But Mindy assured Megan that she would tell her what to say by means of a microchip. She was interested in humiliating both Zoey ad Quinn as much as possible. The whole of Pacific Coast Academy was supposed to rue the day of treating bher like dirt, until dystopia were they made to rue it.

Three years ago, Megan had already let Drake and Josh use such a microchip. In an academic bowl, Drake Parker had wanted to impress his team's captain, Michelle Gray[[18]]. Josh was hiding in the toilet and telling Drake the correct answers by means of a wireless connection, against his better judgment, though.

Megan liked the campaign of revenge, but she had to ponder whether it was really worth the trouble to go through this in order to help Drake and Josh, a help. mind you, which was not necessarily going to get appreciated.

Then again, Pacific Coast Academy was not utterly unfamiliar to Megan, for, although she had never been there, she had got several friends studying over there, such as Wendy Gellar[[19]], Hollywood starlet Ashley Blake[[20]], neighbour boy Robert Carmichael[[21]], and a certain Catherine Alexandra Baldwin[[22]]. She would have to talk them into participating in their mischievous plot, but this was not granted to be successful as they were maybe also friends of said Zoey or Quinn, and thus definitely not easy to persuade.

This looked like requiring some hard work and more favours to return, and so on and so on.

After some sleepless night, Megan would reject Mindy's offer and not show up as Paige Howard at Pacific Coast Academy. It was a hard decision, but Megan was confident in fixing Drake's and Josh's girl problem in a way she deemed appropriate, sooner or later.

Mindy was disappointed and was now looking for another way to get back at her declared nemesis number one.

Inspite of being remotely related to Mindy, I had not been aware of her vindicatory campaign against said Zoey Brooks, or else … oh well, this is another story for later.

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** Chapter 3. Spin City Records**

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** 3.1. The Beginnings Of Drake's Band**

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Already as a middle school boy did Drake Parker have a little band, consisting of his middle school pals Paul Rivera[[23]], Caterina Worth[[24]], and Scott Duncan[[25]]. They had not got a real audience barring a few lousy and bored school kids until something had changed dramatically.

Josh had once messed up Drake's expensive guitar with an autograph of Devin Malone[[26]], the lead guitarist of Drake's favourite band Zero Gravity, and had bought a new instrument for which he needed the autograph of the star. In this process, the plectrum hand of the renowned guitarist had been broken, and Drake had jumped in Devin's place.

This had been the begin of Drake's fame throughout southern California and Drake's professional career as a guest in clubs and stuff. Drake's appearence at the spring fling of Pacific Coast Academy had not been so much later, and already then his concerts had been worth thousands of bucks.

But the way from a club guitarist to a world renowned star is very hard and cumbersone, as Drake was experiencing for quite some time. He was trapped in the form of limitation between his first professional concerts and the raging flood of platinum records that would surely come … one day … wouldn't it?

* * *

** 3.2. Manager Josh**

* * *

At the beginning, Drake had hired a professional manager, but the guy sucked completely because his taste was so godawful.

More precisely, the creep had forced Drake to perform in excessively ugly and disgusting outfits designed by his evil girlfriend[[27]], and he made the band perform in asylums for the elderly who did not appreciate modern music at all[[28]].

During a trip to Los Angeles[[29]], Josh had been able to organise a concert for Drake in thge renowned Sunset Studioes[[30]], and this had been the beginning of Josh's dubious career as a band manager.

In the aftermaths of this concert, Drake and Josh had marked a milestone to Drake's first record contract, as they had met some travelling agent who gave them a recommendation for renowned record producer Allan Crimp[[31]] from New York's well-established and universally famous music production company Spin City Records.

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** 3.3. Makes Me Happy**

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The great day for Drake Parker was finally there, one year after meeting the agent from Spin City Records, and he did not even have tpo go to New York City, the headquarters of the record producing company in order to make it to a destiny-laden encounter with the great Allan Crimp.

Chances were now great for getting one of Drake's own favourite songs produced, _Makes Me Happy_[[32]]. The song was already over a year old, and Drake had been desperately looking forward to getting it produced.

Alas, the song would not be produced for its own sake, but it would be used in order to promote the products of America's greatest shoe vendor company, Daka Shoes[[33]], a corporation with really lousy sales strategies and even worse products.

Truth spoken, a more appropriate title for a song used for promoting Daka's degenerated footwear would have been _Makes Me Unhappy_, for that's what those boots did to the unwary customers stupid enough to buy them.

Likewise, Megan's feelings were mixed, as she did by no means trust companies like Daka sponsoring the production of musics for the egoistical purpose of making commercials. On the long run, it did not matter whether those shoes to be sold were going to be a really great success or not, Drake would always have stayed a lowly and unworthy lackey of exorbitantly perverted capitalist charlatans without a trace of a heart for musics.

For that reason, Megan saw it more likely for Drake to end up eating dogfoot on the backseat of a rusty dune buggy than dining in the guest room of a limousine while carried by his fans from concert to concert.

Unfortunately, there was now some big trouble ahead in the residence of the Parkers and Nichols, and this was all the fault of goofy Josh. He was working part time at the greatest cinema of uptown San Diego, Première Theater, a movie house owned by Helen Baxter, former child acting star at Hollywood[[34]], was going to marry for the second time, and she needed to accomodate her relatives for that purpose, including a massively overweight senile matron of the most disgusting and perverted sort. And guess whom Helen had chosen for this ignoble task … and Walter and Audrey were perverse enough to accept the request. But in order to do so, Megan was forced to live in the dormitory of Drake and Josh for the time of the wedding.

* * *

** 3.4. A Big Mess**

* * *

Megan was of course by absolutely no means pleased, for bearing Drake and Josh was a catastrophe, but things were worse. Josh had been put in charge with Première Theater during those days, and he was overburdened with a task not suited for boobs and most likely to take it out on Megan and Drake.

Mindy would have jumped in in order to help Josh and thus get again closer to him, but this would have required Megan to accept Mindy's offer and give a demonstration at Pacific Coast Academy of Mindy's recent discovery, using the fake name of Paige Howard. But Megan had turned this down, and so she was now in the situation of making her own plans in order to do something with the purpose of making the whole situation more bearable.

At the same time, it became more and more clear that Megan's fears concerning Spin City Records had been much more than just in order, as the windy company had mutilated Drake's song badly, following a request by Daka. Even more, Josh had signed a completely corrupt contract with the creeps from the record corp, as he had failed to read the small print carefully. The reason for Josh's mistake was a really big shrimp offered by Allan Crimp, making him forget about the details, with devastating comsequences.

Megan sighed deeply, as she would have liked to perform the wedding march on her oboe upon the wedding of Helen, but now she had to act in order to save Drake's and Josh's lives to slip completely from their hands. With Mindy Crenshaw and Carly Donohugh, there would have been a chance of catching Drake's and Josh's insane fall, but this chance had by now been dwindling to naught.

Megan was a very gifted oboe player, but I had not heard of her until then, although I was an aspiring composer and player of the piano[[35]] and the recorder[[36]] as well, and I had got an absolute audition.

* * *

** 3.5. Claire Sawyer, Future Lawyer**

* * *

It was necessary to pry Drake loose from his perverted and foul contract, but this was impossible without a good lawyer.

Megan's cousin Spencer had once been a student at Olympia Law School, but he had been kicked out after three days because he had cheated in the admission test, as had been made evident only a few days later. Really, he had been applying only for the sake of family tradition, as Spencer's gramps was a lawyer as well. Megan could have contacted him, but he was stuck in a Yakima in the backwaters of the state of Washington.

Alas, there was a cheaper solution available in Los Angeles county where Drake Parker's with Spin City Records was legally registered. A high school girl from James K. Polk in Santa Clarita in the outskirts of Los Angeles had sometimes been practising with a junior license and had already kicked other people out of troubles. Her name was Claire Sawyer, and she was generally known as "future lawyer", which already said it all, and if anyone was able to find a gap in the contract, Claire Sawyer would be it.

* * *

** 3.6. Gustavo Rocks**

* * *

With Claire's help. Megan found a way to get Drake out of his contract, but it was necessary to find someone able to buy Drake loose.

A search on the interweb resulted in a list of one suitable record producer able to afford Drake's absolution, and this one power guy was bald-headed Gustavo Rocque from Rocque Records.

Megan and Claire were now meeting in the cafeteria of Première Theater for the purpose of negotiating the details with Gustavo and his secretary Kelly Waynewright, which was not a really easy taskdue to Gistavo's excruciatingly choleric temper. His tantrums were renowned to cause earthquakes of a magnitude of up to four on Richter's scale.

Properly spoken, only one person in California was by now able to withstand such a shaking experience without at least temporary, if not permanent damage of bone and marrow, let alone the central nervous system, and this one human being happened to be Helen Baxter.

When the former Hollywood kid star heard about the earth shaking conversation, she had to intervene and fight bacvk in her own manner, which was definitely no more pleasant than Gustavo's tantrums, even less bearable by anyone.

It was definitely too uch for Helen's want-to-be future husband, and he ran away screaming, giving up on his fiancé without even risking a second thought. In other words, Helen's wedding was cancelled, just as duly intended by Megan Parker, although she had not seen it coming exactly this way.

But the result was the same, and it was time for Drake to sign his first really great record contract.

Alas, as Gustavo's new star he would have to learn a lot about the business and the scene, and with a teacher like Gustavo this meant that he would have to learn it the hard buyt fair way. The record czar used to call his young artist "the dogs", which Megan deemed really funny.

As another consequence, Josh Nichols was now obsolete — Gustavo wanted to manage it all on his own —and would have more spare time to dedicate to more important things in life, such as books and science, instead of having to deal with Drake and thus waste his time on cheap rock music and other crap Drake liked so much..

* * *

** Chapter 4. Grey Is All Theory**

* * *

** 4.1. I Am Paige From Colorado**

* * *

As Megan Parker had not accepted Melinda's aforementioned offer, Mindy needed to find another person able to present her invention on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy. And after a few futile attempts, she tried to talk me into doing so, as I had never been in California and never been familiar to any of the current students at Pacific Coast Academy.

Paige was a girls' name, but we just had to swap firstname and surname, turning it into "Howard Paige", a suitable name for a boy like me, wasn't it? Well, I also had to pretend to be from the state of Colorado, the highest mountains in the United States.

Of course, in theory, everything sounded quite nice and a lot of fun, but was this really the case … it also sounded like a lot of trouble. Especially I was able to comprehend the theory behind Mindy's invention to quite some degree, like most nerds, but I was completely unable to act appropriately in the case of any rising trouble. Knowing Mindy in my back, connected in a wireless manner over a microchip, was not necessarily any help, as in the case of pressure, a fast eye and a nimble hand was more valuable than knowing the whole library of the science club by heart.

In order to push me one step further, Mindy was talking about a programme of the symphonic orchestra of Los Angeles which weas occurring during the same week, where I should of course also participate due to my aforementioned abilities in playing the piano and the fipple flute.

I sighed deeply and finally agreed in making it to southern California in order to carry out my second cousin's vindicatory plots against the scams at Pacific Coast Academy, whoever they were.

* * *

** 4.2. Arrival At The Airport**

* * *

I had taken a plane from Seattle to Los Angeles National Airport anbd was expected here by Mindy, expecting further instructions before my transport to Pacific Coast Academy. She had also thought of doing something in order to make me appear like just having arrived from Denver in Colorado, as expected from "Paige Howard".

Mindy's plan was very detailled, and it required my brain's capacity to keep it stored reliably. There was a huge amount of possibility, options, and suboptions, depending on the actions of Mindy's archfoes at Pacific Coast Academy, especially Zoey Brooks and Quinn Pensky.

This was a very complicated tree of decisions, and even a supreme mastermind genius like Mindy Crenshaw must have been working on it for several days.

And now I was left alone on the airport as I was not in a situation allowing me to risk being seen together with Melinda Crenshaw as this would have immediately rendered our mission impossible from the start. And I had to hold up a sign with "my" name, videlicet "Howard Paige", in order to let the chosen envoy of Dean Carl Rivers, the headmaster of Pacific Coast Academy, find me.

And then there was the moment of no return … a blond teenage girl, fitting dern' straight the description of the one and only Zoey Brooks, and she was so godawfully dern' pretty and charming, and did not look like the monster as which Mindy had been characterising her. Finally, the living Barbie cuteness had found my label, and was on her way over to me, but I also had to make a few steps towards the exit of the airport. And then it happened … I was still a bit dizzy down to the blond Mary Sue's stunning appearance, and I did not pat as much attention to the architecture around me as I should have, I mean noit the theory of dome design and decoration, but the mere fact of a pillar standing in my way, a plain pillar of the sort found in most bigger halls of these days … my skull hit the hard obstacle and my world went dark.

I would much later learn that some other boys had made similar experiences with Zoey Brooks, the top of them all being her class pal Chase Bartholomew Matthews.

A few moments later, I woke up from the consequences of the not so anticipated impact, and the unearthly Barbie doll held my wrists, probably as she had helped me up again. For a few seconds, I heard bells chime and angels sing around me, in any case, my speech was a bit disabled. The microchip was fortunately not damaged, at least it felt the same way as before. And now I had to hear Mindy's angry words, telling me to watch my way better, especially in the presence of the queen of all of her foes. But I better ignored her, I was not able to think straight enough to know what to say, and so I just followed Zoey to the car after having heard her introduce herself.

* * *

** 4.3. The Car Trip**

* * *

The car was driven by some Coco Wexler, an exorbitantly messy and chubby woman around thirty who held a half empty can of ravioli in one of her hands while driving the car. Acoording to Zoey, the disgusting woman was the adviser for the dormitory rooms of the girls at Pacific Coast Academy. Only once in my life had I stumbled across someone more awkward, and this was a certain Lewbert, doorman in the lobby of Bushwell Plaza in the downtown of Seattle, the place where aforementioned Carly Shay and her brother Spencer used to reside.

Zoey repeated unto me the scheduled points of my visit to this elitary prep school, points that I already knew well enough … at least in theory. I was going to be guided through the scientific laboratory and the classes of the school, and also a few other buildings, I would have to face aforementioned Dean Rivers and also Leo Bradford[[37]], the aristocratic owner of the whole was talking about him with distain, because he appeared to hate girls in general, and he would not have shown up for this day if Paige Howard instead of Howard Paige had been the expected winner of the national science fair to give a demonstration.

Accidentally, Zoey Bropoks had got a little brother in my age, a certain Dustin, and she kept on talking about him, reveiling that she was thoroughly overprotective of him, and I did not necessarily want to be in his shoes.

* * *

** 4.4. Physics Classes**

* * *

Here I was in the classes of physics taught at Pacific Coast Academy by one bert Beringer[[38]], the class also taken by Quinn Pensky, Mindy's archrival from earlier science fairs.

Unlike Mindy, Quinn wore a typical pair of nerdy spectacles and braidlets, but she was about on a peer level with my second cousin what concerned science.

Beringer was a poor excuse of a science teacher, and I did not even need Mindy's instructions via microchip in order to ufigure this simple truth. Later I would come to know that he had never wanted to teach science but work as a researcher at a zoological garden, and this explained somewhat his unsuficience. The subject of today's classes were the motion of bodies in a gravitational field according to Kepler's laws. This included ters like the orbits of satellites, and especially those called geosynchronous.

Quinn confused "geosynchronous" and "geostationary", where the latter was a specialisation of the former, and Mindy made me correct her, probably in order to make Quinn feel bad.

Soon after having done so, I came to feel Zoey Brooks's tender breath in my neck, and my mind was carried away and thus I was no longer in a mood allowing me to follow any of Mindy's further instructions. Little wonder, Mindy's instructiuons were little ammused, but I was not able to help it, no matter who was whose archfoe, and how and why.

* * *

** 4.5. The Anti Gravity**

* * *

Quinn Pensky's laboratory was in their dormitory room, 148 Maxwell Hall, which she shared with Zoey and a certain Hollywood starlet named Lola Martinez, one of those shallow minded actresses who were much alike a female version of Drake Parker.

During the way to Maxwell Hall, Zoey had been talking about a top she had designed for my visit, with scientific symbols on it. Unlike Mindy, she was a really versatile designer and able to create art even to trash. One of my dreams had been that of running my own haberdashery[[39]] and so I figured that Zoey's knowledge abiut textile creation would be a great reinforcement. I beamed all over the polce, like a few thousands of suns, and started talking about haberdashery, videlicet yarns, scissors, needles, pins, and so on.

Quinn had apparently just destroyed Lola's cellular phone when trying to use her latest invention, an anti gravity chamber, or at least that had been the geek girl's plan. Mindy told me to fix the problem, with detailled instructions which were fortunately not hard to follow. I also had to say something about Quinn's science blog, and the more I had to talk, the more embarrassed did Quinn turn, just as intended by Mindy.

* * *

** 4.6. Breaking Down**

* * *

Zoey was leading me out to the campus again, and she asked me whether I needed something before the big demonstration of the marvellous invention which was not really mine.

I panted heavily, and, having nodded vigorously, I answered, "how about a little dance?"

Zoey looked a bit puzzled, anbd she wondered, "how is that related to your demonstration?"

I shrugged and grabbed the living wonderbarbie for some sort of a little dance, blushing deeply.

Mindy was apparently as infuriated as can be, but I was able to shut her objections out from my mind who was set on Zoey.

And then I turned completely insane and kissed the blond Mary Sue lightly on one of her cheeks, asking "when I'm big, will you marry me, so we can run a haberdashery together?"

Zoey Brooks fainted, and she gasped vigorously before replying, "Howard … what the hell are you doing? No way!"

I started bursting into tears and broke down on the pavement, drawing the attention of many sadomsochist onlookers of the worst sort.

Zoey seemed to regret having hirt me with her brash reply, and she explained carefully that she was expecting other things from a boyfriend and future husband, especially agewise.

Now I could not stand anylonger lying to Zoey, and I started reveiling my proper identity and the whole purpose of my visit here at Pacific Coast Academy, including Mindy Crenshaw. Zoey had got a hard time swallowing all that, and she felt a few mental pains when remembering Mindy Crenshaw, but she forgave me anyways because I had been honest, at least in the end, and then she wished me some good luck for my further way, including the haberdashery.

Needless to say, my second cousin would be even more upset and consider me a cold blooded traitor, at best a completely unreliable no good for anything.

The demonstration of Mindy's invention was, however, cancelled, and I was not willing to encounter her anytime soon after this epic failure.

The theory behind her plot may have been perfect, but she had forgotten to consider my possible and real feelings which had been the greatest obstacle at all.

My second purpose for coming to Los Angeles, however, was the programme of the symphonic orchestra, and after my disastrous demeanour, I was not in the optimal mood for tackling this task. But giving up was not an option at all, so I had to go through it, no matter what.

* * *

** Chapter 5. The Symphonic Centre**

* * *

So, this was the fabulous symphonic centre of Los Angeles … well, it was not really that fabulous of course when compared to the big centres in Milan, London, Paris, Vienna, and so on, and everything in Los Angeles stood under the suffocating shadow of Hollywood, which means that the survivalk of this centre depended rather on its ways of integrating itself into the bigger schemes of the movie industry than in the custody and promotion of the good old art of music … Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Vivaldi, Bach, Bizet … you name it! The hard to be earned survival in Los Amngeles was the end justifying the means of arranging with Hollywood, wasn't it?

One of the currently leading responsibles of this centre of the symphonic arts was Dingleberry Combover[[40]] who was in his day job also a teacher for music and drama at James K. Polk middle school in Santa Clarita in the suburbs of Los Angeles. The lack of a full-time professional responsible already said it all how much the established arts of Los Angeles were disadvantaged.

Two twin sisters from Santa Clarita, Stasie and Tracy Oboe[[41]] … apparently fake names — were just on the brink of becoming famous for their oboe performance, but Megan Parker, although three years younger, was already a really tight competitor. During their middle school times, those twins were known to be very shy, but this had been changed a lot by their middle school pals, especially Edmond Bigby, author of a most celebrated middle school survival guide that was at that time circulating at the schools of California. Bigby's hints were sometimes really awkward, but in the end they always turned out reliable, and this guaranteed the great success of his DVD whose price was increasing rapidly.

Also, a violinist[[42]] and a violoncellist[[43]] from Pacific Coast Academy had made it to these halls in order to demonstrate their prowess. Fortunately, a flautist named Michael Barret, another student from that most illustrous boarding school at the beach of Malibu, had not — at least not yet — found his way up here, as he was too embarrassed because of his flute play.

Ten years ago, nowadays countrywide beatbox flautist Gregory Padillo[[44]] had been the uncontested winner of this event, and there had never been anyone using the same instrument coming close ever since. The piano, on the other hand, was a really standard instrument in the honour rolls of this event, either as a solo or a backup for others.

So, the piano was my instrument, and it had of course been by definitely no stretch whatsoever possible to take my trusty tool down from Seattle to Los Angekles for this trial. It was necessary to use the provided one, and it was cetainly assumed to be of some decent quality, but my absolute audition made me sense mistuned instruments right before the start. And this piano had not perfectly syntonised, and I complained about it which was somewhat embarrassing for the staff of the symphony orchestra, and, needless to say, fixing the problem was not unlikely to delay the schedule to some degree.

For some great musicians, player and instrument were a living unity, and it would have been hard for them to switch or borrow a not yet accustomed one. For others, in turn, it was just a tool for the purpose of making goos music, and moving on was not much of a hassle.

The reaction of the organisers was thus not really pleasant, but it had to bem as decided by one of the responsibles. There were more important events for which the piano was going to be needed soon, and they better used this occasion as a test run. More precisely, the sponsor of the next event was really important, and disappointing him was not really something the hall wanted to risk, given the permanent struggle for founds.

Only after an hour of delay was it finally possible to reuse the piano again, and this made many of the present responsibles sigh for extreme relief.

In the meantime, the oboe twins had already started with their performance, and it was not a bad demonstrantion of their synchrone blowing skills, but the tune was definitely not the most exciting and challenging one. There were probably better players of the oboe around, and one of them would be no other than Megan Parker.

The pianists had now got half a minute left each in order to test the retuned instrument, and this time it worked a lot better, although I was still not totally convinced of it.

One of my favourite ancient writings was the _Corpus Hermeticum_ from second century Alexandria, the true cultural centre of the old Roman empire. In these marvellous scrolls, the author compared the human body with a mistuned instrument serving poorly the purposes of being a way of the human soul for expressing itself. I had to think a lot about this passage whenever I had to hear a misatuned instruments, and there were many of them at this event —, fortunately most of them not in my hands. The oboes of the oboe twins, for example, were really rotten and disturbed from the inside, but this was hard to hear without my absolute audition.

And finally, Dingleberry Combover called my name, and I made it up to the stage in order to perform something om the piano, and more precisely I had chosen the Requiem of Giuseppe Verdi. Why this was the case will be a topic for later, but for the time being, it did not really make much sense wasting too many thoughts on my motivations.

The audience was no more and no less curious than in the case of many other participants, and I was better off ignoring them for the time being. My fingers started dancing across the black and white keys and they caused the strings hidden in the case of the instrument to vibrate in a harmonical manner.

I hummed along "Dies iræ, dies illa, solvet sæclum in favilla, teste David cum Sybilla." These were the days of wrath, the special days, sooner or later striking Carly Shay and even more her foul friends Fredward Benson and Samantha Puckett … but that was a story for later on.

The air was filled with the heavy sounds of this penitential hymn, and it did not really last very long, at least not long enough to match with the eternal hellfire some of these people were going to face. Final, the last chord was struck by my fingers, and the curtain fell … oops, this was not a concert … but there was some moderate applause, probably by some hypocrits who applaud to everything they here on the stage, no matter what, even without understanding anything whatsoever.

Dingleberry Combover thanked me for my efforts, but he also urged the schedule to be followed, and it was time for me to leave the stage and give way to the next performer, the aforementioned violoncellist from Pacific Coast Academy. I was sent back into the audience in order to listen to the next participants' performances.

All of a sudden, aforementioned Michael Barret was pushed into the hall by Zoey Brooks, against his own expressed wishes, or so it seemed, and he was only grudgingly holding the transversally held flute that Zoey pressed into his hands. I had to shake my head vigorously when watchin g this absurd scenario, and I wondered why Zoey did that to her so-called friend, but it was not really my concern.

And then, finally. Dingleberry Combover announced "I know, you have already listened to the oboe twins, but now there comes a solo oboe, twelve years old Megan Parker from San Diego, right next to the Mexican border."

I shrugged at first glance, but then my breath styarted to freeze when looking at the outlines of the oboist, a girl totally ressembling obnoxious Carlotta Shay from Seattle. hell, I would have supposed her to be Carluy using a fake name, just as Melinda had used a fake name in order to enroll at Pacific Coast Academy, and I had used a fake name in order to demonstrate Mindy's invention.

But, as clear as daylight, Carly Shay was not the girl appreciating the sound of the oboe, as her favourite music was that of a lame Seattle based band named Cuttlefish. And this proved everything, especially that it was not Carly Shay right on the stage, in front of my face. But who was that girl, Megan Parker, really … her appearance, no matter what, was excessively mysterious to the touch.

I glared at megan and she glared back at me, but without saying a word, which, for all ends and purposes, did not even appear possible as my mouth was like spellbound by her mesmerising gaze.

So, I had made it to Los Angeles under a false pretense — that of being the winner of the national science fair — and I had participated in this contest — without winning — but somehow, this first encounter with Megan Parker appeared to be the ends of the trip justifying all the obscure means hitherto deployed.

The winner of the contest were the aforementioned oboe twins, as their synchronicity must have impressed everyone, and it would probably even impress more and more people at Hollywood with a really poor taste for music, but that's how survival in Los Angeles appeared to work, after all.

Michael Barret was winning a special comedy prize for his arguments with Zoey Brooks about the sense and nonsense of his participation in this event, an argument that was hardly intended as comedy in the first place, but the very worHollywood was prone for all sort of unintentional jokes and farces, from the bloody beginning through the bitter end.

This was not really my concern, though, as opposed to the finally important question as of whether I was going to meet Megan again, and would we even start talking?

Apparently, only time would be able to tell …

* * *

** Chapter 6. Looking For A Way To Megan**

* * *

** 6.1. Return To The Emerald City**

* * *

Back in Seattle … with nothing but Megan Parker on my mind … have to survive until meeting her again, and if this was the last thing for me to do in this wretched time-worn existence which average people have the guts to call life, although it is nothing like that, it's a plain abuse of the term.

True life is by absolutely no means tied to anything like space or time, it is preexistant and immortal, no matter what.

As already said, the music of Drake Parker was shallow and hollow ro the core, but even Megan Parker and I were made wonder by one of his songs, _What is time?_[[45]]

Mindy was certainly not pleased about my failure in my mission to subcert Pacific Coast Academy and make Zoey brooks pay for everything and stuff, no matter what, so it was impossible to count on her help for the time being, maybe for good, or maybe not, that was hard truly hard to tell as Mindy was keeping on surprising people over and over again during her whole career as a "creature", as Drake Parker used to namecall her. Assuming that Melinda would be more forgiving towards remote relatives than to, let's say, that perverted creep of a teacher named Linda Hayfer would potentially have been a fatally naïve mistake, definitely one to be avoided rigorously at any cost whatsoever.

So, was there a way to try to see Megan Parker again without bothering Mindy, hell, it would even be detrimental to just ley her know anything about my feelings for Megan Parker.

So, I had to wonder whether there was another way to stay in contact with the scene down in San Diego, the metropole of southern California closest to the Mexican border, much closer than Seattle is to the Canadian border.

So, I had failed my mission on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy because of the blond Mary Sue, better known as Zoey Brooks, and this made me wonder whther some people from that elitary boarding school were able to help me there.

Granted, Malibu and San Diego were not really close to each other, but still a whole trifle closer than Seattle and San Diego. And there were many connections between people from San Diego and Pacific Coast Academy, as already elucidated to some degree in earlier parts of this report of mine.

There was of course the big problem that many kids at Pacific Coast Academy were avid fans of the web show of Carly Shay, the cheap and dirty clone of Megan Parker. This made it necessary to remain even more careful, as contacting the wrong person would have been detrimental. And it was evident that those creep would not forget me, no matter how much time would have passed by since my encounter with the moderator of the most boring web show ever.

The wrongest person would probably have been Melanie Puckett[[46]], the nice identical twin sister of Samantha Puckett. Well, I had found out about that secret on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy when talking to Zoey Brooks and preparing the failed demonstration of Mindy's revolutionary invention.

* * *

** 6.2. Wendy Gellar**

* * *

My first thought was that of contacting Wendy Gellar, one of Megan's friends nowadays active at Pacific Coast Academy, also kn own as the number one fan of Drake Parker. Three years ago, the bugger from Megan's had stalked her idol at each and every possible occasion.

She had not only been Megan's friend, but also a member of her junior scout group conducted by her stepfather Walter Nichols, and sometimes by Joshuah.

Drake had made some fake promises unto Wendy without ever taking them serious, and she was totally addicted and thence heartbroken when it turned out that Drake had been a plain liar about his feelings for her. A bit later, he had tried to make a bit up for it, but what had Wendy been really feelin g ever since — this was even unbeknownst to Mindy Crenshaw.

In any case, Megan and Wendy appeared to have remained friends during the last three years, a damn' long period of time for kids of the day, or at least Mindy was not really aware of anything to the contrary. Alas, what are three years when compared to eternity … As mot people have heard, many young people promise to be "best friends forever", but they can hardly ever been taken serious there, for most friendships appear to decay and corrode over time, sometimes pretty fast and shockingly, others slowly and underhandedly. Few friendships survive dearth and multiple lifetimes, so what …

Whatever the situation between Drake and Wendy, it was by no means guaranteed that Wendy would be much of a help.

And contacting her was not really a given, but it was certainly possible to ask Zoey brooks to try to get Wendy to reply. The blond barbie doll was now unlikely to bite my head off for little reason.

And, indeed, Wendy did actually reply to my request, although she was not really keen on Zoey Brooks. This attitude went back to the day when Drake Parker showed up on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy for the first time. Wendy had just been over her first disappointment by Drake when she had to see Zoey standing close to her idol, and, even more, Nicole Bristow, one of Zoey's friends back then, being even more obsessed with Drake than Wendy. Oh yeah, Drake had been targetted by a really huge host of girls back then, which was nothing astonishing at all, as we have seen. And Wendy was bitterly jealous when other girls got close to Drake, even after having calmed down.

In addition, Zoey's little brother, Dustin Brooks, had once had a crush on Wendy Gellar, but she had only laughed about him because, well, he was not Drake Parker, had never been, would never be. Zoey had rebuked Wendy for the way she had made Dustin ridiculous, not for rejecting him. But Wendy had misunderstood it as the latter, something really ridiculous. Zoey was totally overprotective of her little brother and had been of the opinion that he was too young for girls, anyways. So she was rather glad about Dustin's fledgling girl craziness getting delayed a bit, and it was really all about Wendy's way of telling Dustin. Saying something like "no, thanks, you're not my type of boy" would have been great, but laughing about the Mary Sue's favourite little brother was a capital crime. This incident had occurred almost two years ago, which was also quite some amount of time, but I had not got any clue whether Dustin was still suffering much from having been turned down and ridiculed in an excruciatingly humiliating manner by Wendy.

Wendy's first mail in return did not only confirm the rumours about Dustin Brooks, but it also mentioned another interesting former crush of the same little bugger, a certain Trisha Kirby[[47]] who was no other than a synonym for aforementioned Samantha Puckett!

Zoey Brooks had been really upset by this perversely inappropriate relationship.

Samantha was the most annoying and corrupt girl ever, a real abomination for mankind, and most likely the source of the ongoing downfall of Carly Shay and her web show. I had always supposed her to be a mean seductress and abuser of innocent boys, and this confirmed it once more. Zoey Brooks had done the right thing when intervening and looking for a way to break Dustin and Sam apart, even though — at least according to Wendy — her means had been a bit inappropriate. The Mary Sue had sent no other than her wannabe boyfriend Chase Matthews, a dweeb with busht hair, ahead and commanded him to break Trisha and Dustin apart. Chase would apparently have done everything for his crush, except of admitting to it, and this situation had been lasting for a very long time, at least three years by now. Now, talking Trisha out of her relationship with Dustin had worled, but the side effects had been a bit less than desirable. Chase had suggested Sam to look for an older boyfriend instead of young Dustin, and, boom, he whad turned in to Samantha's alias Trisha's knew date. This was of course not the goal of Chase's exercise, as he had still only got Zoey Brooks in his mind, for understandable reasons. Dustin had been thoroughly upset and beat up Chase Matthews for that into pieces — here Wendy's report had probably been exaggerated. Samantha alias Trisha had been impressed by Dustin and she wanted to trash Chase, who appeared too weak and unmanly in her eyes, for the sake of the little brother of the living barbie princess, but Dustin had never since forgiven Samantha's inappropriate demeanour, which was of course completely in order. And this treason had already been almost two years ago, a lot of time for the life of a little boy, but Dustin had lerned not to fall for the wrong girls.

So, what potential had Wendy's intervention got in order to help me in order to get once again in touch with Megan Parker? This was a really interesting question, as I had not yet got a plan, but Wendy seemed to be interested in forwarding my request. But, as expected, her help was not going to be without a price label attached. She was only going to help me to get to Megan if I helped her to get to Drake Parker once I was well acquainted with Megan.

So, after all that much time gone by ever since, Wendy had not yet given up, just changed her scope. She had practised rock music composition a lot, and she was now willing to become the song composer for Drake and his band, so she could be close to him, even if not as Drake's girlfriend.

Her long-term friend and remote relative Adelaide Singer[[48]] was a gifted song lyricist and wanted to provide the text for Drake's new records.

This sounded really like a plot, but only time would tell whether the plot was anywhere near good or bound for success.

* * *

** Chapter 7. Godless Boys**

* * *

** 7.1. Lance Rivers**

* * *

Not much later, I received some reports about news concerning life at Pacific Coast Academy, and the report was of course once more from Wendy Gellar. At first glance, it was by asolutely no means obvious for me how these messages were going to help me with meeting Megan Parker again.

But, OK, those were the facts: Zoey Brooks was keeping on dating Lance Rivers, the son of Dean Carl Rivers.

No, I was not jealous, but I was whole lot worried about the blond Mary Sue, as Lance Rivers was not only a perverted playboy — or so did Wendy's report sound — but also ready for abusing his kinship with the headmaster of this illustrous boarding school in order to deceive and abuse all sorts of girls in the most shameless manner.

Truth said, I did think the same way about Drake Parker, the most godless person at the western coast of the United states of America since the foundation fathers, but talking this unto Wendy Gellar, his biggest fan since the invention of sliced bread, would have immediately and irreversibly reduced to zilch any chances of getting her to help me with Megan Parker.

OK, back to Lance Rivers … the creep seemed to abuse his connections to the school's admi nistration shamelessly in order to hit on girls like Zoey Brooks, and, although it had not yet been reported unto me, he was most likely abusing other girls at the same time in a similar manner. He even bribed Lola Martinez and Quinn Pensky into silence, which was of course really evil, too. Lola was in need of a new refrigerator forher fruits which she ate in order to stay slim, while Quinn's bed was in such a terrible state that her back hurt mercilessly, making a new mattress absolutely necessary.

So, while it was not explicitly stated, I was sure that a godless person like Lance Rivers had got several girlfriends at the same time, and this demeanour was by absolutely no means different from that of aforementioned Cory Matthews, the unfaithful boyfriend of Megan Parker from last year. Melinda had told me vaguely about that story, for she had been very much pleased by the fact of Drake getting beaten up by Cory.

Zoey did definitely not deserve getting treated in a totally similar way, so I asked Wendy to do something about it, as fast as only possible. Drake's stalking fan had got no better idea than informing aforementioned Dustin Brooks about the possibility of Lance cheating recklessly on Zoey, and this did the trick indeed. Zoey's little brother would spy on Lance Rives for several days straight and figure that he had indeed got several kinds of sorts of girlfriends, cheating remorselessly on the blond Mary Sue. Of course, Zoey would not want to believe this, and so Dustin would have to make his elder sister face the other girlfriends of said Lance Rivers.

One of those was a certain Jennifer Mosely from James K. Polk High School in Santa Clarita, a tall teenage girl with many talents, any of them blatantly wasted on someone thoroughly despicable like Lance Rivers.

Two days later, Zoey and Jennifer would stand face to face and realise what a bastard scum that Lance Rivers was indeed. None of them would ever contibue to date that disgusting creep, although he was from one of the most respected families in California since one hundred and twenty years, or so said the official yearbooks of Pacific Coast Academy.

So, this intervention had been great, and Wendy was going to talk about it to Megan Parker which would be really cool.

Alas, Lance Rivers was not the one and only unholy creep roaming Pacific Coast Academy, but only a little fish compared to the next important person to be mentioned, the creep of creeps par excellence.

* * *

** 7.2. Logan Reese**

* * *

The root of all evil among the current students of the most illustrous prep school known as Pacific Coast Academy was beyond absolutely any doubt Logan Reese, son of multigazillionary Malcolm Reese[[49]] who was the most renowned producer at Hollywood, ever.

Logan had been the room mate of aforementioned Michael Barret and Chase Matthews since their sixth grade when the latter two were new at Pacific Coast Academy. The two of them still kept on considering him as one of their friends, but they have been slowly corrupting themselves by this friendship, falsely so-called.

Little wonder Logan was a recklessly womanising dandy of the most merciless sort ever.

The gang of Zoey Brooks had been in their eighth grades when Pacific Coast Academy had gone coeducative, and this was almost four years ago. Chase Matthews had been hankering after Zoey Brooks in his silent matter from the very start, but Logan Reese had kept on looking down arrogantly on the girls and on Chase's little crush. And he had tortured him all the way in the most cruel manner for this silent obsession of his bushy roomie.

Logan Reese had never liked Zoey, quite the contrary, he had pushed her rudely into the dirt during a basketball match when girls were new and had been trying to get accepted into the boys' athletic teams. But the pteenage playboy had not got any qualms hitting on Zoey Brooks for the sole purpose of making Chase Bartholomew Matthews … his "friend" … feel as miserable as can be.

The first example of this activity was at the occasion of a school play in Zoey's first year, a play written by Chase Bartholomew Matthews. The drama featured an alien girl that was stranded on planet earth, more precisely dropped intp the Pacific ocean, and saved by a hot lifeguard. Of course, beyond any doubt Chase had written the play with himself as the life guard and with Zoey as the alien girl in mind, especially as those two characters were scheduled to kiss at the end of the play, but his plan had not really worked out as intended, more precisely, while Zoey had been assigned as the alien girl, Logan Reese had been chosen as the life guard. Oh yeah, the creepy dandy had applied for this rôle just in order to screw with Zoey in front of Chase's eyes, for, usually, Logan was not interested in theatre, inspite of his dad's excessively successful career as a movie producer. And he had been accepted as he was so good when auditioning, which was not much of a miracle given that Chase had written the character of the life guard the way he, Chase, would have liked to be, and this was largely inspireed by Logan's seductive example as an exorbitantly impressive ladies' man. Zoey Brooks had got even less talent for acting, but she had been able to play the alien girl perfectly because Chase had written the rôle of the alien girl exactly in the likeness of Zoey Brooks, no more and no less. In other words, Zoey just had to be herself in order to accomplish the task, and she did not need to act at all, no matter what. Chase would not have survived watching Logan and Zoey kiss on the stage, but, fortunately, Zoey slipped a few seconds before and was harshly critisised by the teenage dandy from Beverly Hills, an accidental event showing getting the blond Mary Sue to change audaciously the end of the script, telling the life guard that she was disappointed by earth boys and wanted to return to her own planet on site.

During the next three years, many other examples of that sort had been added, and talking about all of them would require an insane amount of time, and, unfortunately, Zoey happened to forgive the disgusting sheik all the time.

During the weeks following my fist visit at Pacific Coast Academy, Logan locked Zoey into a closet in order to keep her from winning a plane trip sponsored by software vendoer Blix[[50]], made Zoey and Lola fight each other over the first prize in a beauty pageant he had organised,[[51]], and made the kids believe that he had been disowned by his father in order to abuse their pity.[[52]]

Any of these evil events showed that Logan was absolutely diabolical and perverted, and that his falsely so-called friends were thoroughly deceived by forgiving him all the time.

Logan had even caused a lot of legal trouble for Chase Bartholomew Matthews and for Michael Barret by suggesting them to publish a cartoon on _Toon Juice_ which had been copied from a toon show by some Topher Lane.[[53]]

But Logan Reese's major fraud was already dating back to the year, and it was connected to some event occurring at Pacific Coast Academy like fifty years earlier. Back then, student Charles Galloway[[54]] had been scared by evil teacher Hodges during his classes and was rumoured to have run into the desert of Redstone Gulch, a few hours away from the campus of Pacific Coast Academy, a barren place where he had also been supposed to have died and to be buried. Logan had been hell bent on finding the tomb, just in order to make a very successful Hollywood movie of it, whence he had insisted in exclusive filmin rights. He had organised a trip into the desert with his friends in order to check out the tomb of the unfortunate former student. Finding the location of the last rest of Galloway had not been easy and required some of Quinn Pensky's recent inventions, but it was ultimately successful. Logan had insisted in digging the tomb and taking a locket of its owner to Pacific Coast Academy, as it was a necessary proof for the authenticioty of the story of Charles Galloway and thus the key to a movie breaking all the hitherto beknownst record in Hollywood. In other word, Logan Reese showed no respect for the rest of the death, and, even more, no awe for an unblessed tomb. His friends had been against stealing from the tomb, but Logan had done it, anyways, albeit secretly, with almost fatal consequences — the theft from the tomb had triggered the wild hunt and endangered the life not only of Logan's friends, but also all the other students on the campus. The restless spirit had been about leaving a trail of chaos and turmoil on the campus. Finally, the kids had returned the locket to the tomb, causing the phantom to calm down for the moment.

So, on the one hand, this audacious enterprise not only confirms Logan Reese's extreme lack of awe for the paranatural, but it also constituted a permanent danger for life at Pacific Coast Academy and Los Angeles, as returning the medallion to the tomb would not prevent the restless soirit from returning again and wreaking even more furious havoc amonh the kids every now and then, unless dealt with appropriately. These prospects were by no means promising, and we needed to be extremely careful during the next years.

* * *

** Chapter 8. Visitors' Day**

* * *

** 8.1. Maybe PCA**

* * *

As you have seen from the previous reports, I was very much concerned about life at Pacific Coast Academy, so many wonder why I had not wanted to join that ill;ustrous school. So, I had to ask it myself, and the prospects appeared more and more interesting, at least in theory, for then I would be closer to Megan, and live with people who are a whole lot more familiar with her than anyone here in Seattle.

Talking my mother into sending me there was not much of a problem, as she knew that I had only got troubles with the kids in Seattle and stuff. But I needed to check the campus and the school a bit closer, and for this avail, there was an annual visiotors' day at Pacific Coast Academy especially geared for potential future Pacific Coast Academy students.

The most important part of that programme would be interviews with the established students at Pacific Coast Academy, so I better prepared a few questions … unfortunately, with so many visitors and so little time at opur disposal, the number of questions would have to be severely limited and it was unlikely that I was given the occasion to ask at least one question, let alone several of them.

* * *

** 8.2. Back At PCA**

* * *

Being known as an enemy of Carly Shay and her web show would not necessarily make my life at Pacific Coast Academy easy, but Seattle was by absolutely no means different. So it was absolutely necessary for me to fight my way through the hoards of insane fans of _iCarly_. But there were severe rules against attacking guests and stuff like that.

I was allowed once more allowed to stay in one of the dormitory rooms on the campus, well, rather it was more of an emergency dormitor room not really fit for permanent inhabitation. The toilet rooms were not far from there, and this was particularly audible when the showers' water was too hot, something that occurred when — at about the same time — one of the toilets was flushed.[[55]] Fortunately this was just a temporary solution, caused by the lack of a custodian. The last one, Banville[[56]], had just been fired by Dean Rivers for crossing the campus in undergarment only. A new custodian was only to appear during the next semester break, and it was a certain Seamas Finnegan[[57]], what a scary name that made people shudder for disgust and that reminded me of James Joyce's _Finnegan's Wake_ — probably one of theleast readibly works of modernist English literature.

The programme for visitors' day scheduled a long speach of Dean Rivers for which I had already got earcuffs in order to be able to survive, and then there was a guided tour through the cafeteria and other facilities of the campus. I was also equipped with a huge map of the campus of Pacific Coast Academy, preventing me from losing orientation on the open grounds of the school, something that had already been a problem for visitors and new students, teachers, or staff members alike.

* * *

** 8.3. The Interviews**

* * *

Up to now, we visitors had already been able to pick up a few hints about life at Pacific Coast Academy, but the interviews were supposed to be even more useful for our orientation. Three juniors had been declared ready by Dean Rivers to answer our questions, and they were now standing right there on the podium, awaiting and bracing for the impending storm. Those three students were Zoey Brooks, Chase Bartholomew Matthews, and a certain Stacey Dillsen.

The latter was a girl from Swampscott in Massachusetts who used to talk with a very heavy lisp, and who was particularly obsessed with building sculptures from cotton swabs and white instant carpenter's glue.

OK, there were some huundred visitors, but there was only time for some dozen of questions, so there was no way for each and every kid to ask at least one. This sounded totally unfair, given that I had prepared some fifty questions … bear with it!

Some kid asked whether the coeducation at a boarding school like Pacific Coast Academy, practiced for almost four years by now, was rather problematic or whether it was really smooth. Zoey admitted to the existence of a lot of troubles every now and then, and most of them had been caused by boys like Logan Reese, Lance Rivers, and other disgusting jerks. Well, Zoey did not care to call the boys like that, but it was absolutely obvious for anyone with eyes to see and with ears to hear what was the real character of the boys who caused troubles during the times of coeducation.

Another kid asked about the possibility of uncanny things going on at Pacific Coast Academy, and it was im possible for Chase and Zoey to deny that there were some scary events every now and then, including aforementioned wild hunt triggered by dishonouring the peaceful rest of the mortal remains of Charles Galloway. Unfortunately, the barby doll that had come to life was totally naïve and not aware of the deeper implications of the curse that was nowadays resting on Pacific Coast Academy. Otherwise, many kids would have been scared to death and beyond by Zoey's appropriate answers. Oh yeah, there were not just a few creepy things going on at this school, rather, the whole school was a pool of uncanniness.

Another kid wondered whether the school was good for future science geeks, and Chase reminded them of the life and times of Quinn Pensky and her many inventions, sorry, quinnventions. This reminded me of my less than glorious first visit to Pacific Coast Academy, and to the reason for it, Melinda Crenshaw's revenge against Zoey and her friends. Oh yeah, Quinn was quite successful as a science geek, but was that really the merit of this illustrous educational institution? I kind of had quite some doubts about this, as Quinn had already been a great geek and nerd girl before coming to the school, and she had not always pleased her comrades with her supreme skills in science and engineering, exactly like my second cousin Melinda, quite the contrary, excuciatingly vulgar pupils like Logan Reese had used to call her a spazz because of her experiments and theories. After all, her "friends" had by absolutely no means got a good influence on her and always tried to corrupt her beyond recognition by attempting to turn her from a nerdy wallflower into something as distinguishedly worthless as a social butterfly.

Next. a kid was worried about its own safety here on the campus, and looked for some reassurance from Chase and Zoey. He would leave home for the first time in his life and was thus a bit concerned about his security, far away from mom. Of course, after all, nothing was safe here on the campus, and this was not at least due to Quinn pensky's experiments and the vengeful actions by people like Mindy Crenshaw would juggled all day long with explosives. There had been a few epidemias on the campus, but fortunately I was always equipped wuith some strong germ killer.

Another kid asked about dress code, something that was fortunately completely absent on this campus. Zoey was a great fashion designer, as we've already seen from her cool backpacks counterfeited by Melinda Crenshaw. During a recent beauty pageant, Zoey had designed outfits for herself and for Lola, getting Logan to sow some war between the room mates by making Lola believe that Zoey had deliberately taylored the diva's gown in some manner inferior to tayloring her own outfit.

Another question was about the dormitory advisers here at Pacific Coast Academy, and the girls had got a very messy one named Coco Wexler which was a plain pain in the hindside. Coco was renowned for roaming the campus with a half-empty can of ravioli, not even distracted by a swarm of killer bees. Needless to say, in cases of emergency Coco Wexler was a worthless factotum on which one should never have to rely, no matter what.

Another kid asked about any flirting going on on the campus since the start of the coeducational era here at Pacific Coast Academy, and indeed Zoey had to confirm this, there was quite a lot of that.

This lead automatically to the question about whether Chase and Zoey were a couple, and inspite of many hints, the two of them had finally got the guts to deny the question. Well, what was the situation between the two of them really? It looked like Chase hankering after her for over three years already, but without ever coming out. I had heard about some of Zoey's boyfriends during that era, such as Lance Rivers and a certain Danny[[58]] Also, Chase had been seen flirting with Lola Martinez, and he had come out with another even hotter Latina as a steady girlfriend, one named Rebecca and equipped with a perfect model figure. I had to wonder why a chick like Lola and even more that Rebecca would dare to date a bushy dweeb like Chase Bartholomew Matthews, and I could not answer the question in any way different from concluding that they had never been Chase's girlfriend, but they had been used in order to make Zoey Brooks jealous, hell, Chase had probably paid them for doing so, as any attractive Latina would have been totally disgusted by Chase's appearance, no matter what. Oh yeah, there were a lot of creepy things going on between Chase and Zoey, ansd I was deadly sure that Zoey would suffer from this situation on the long run due to her barbie-like attitude.

So, while various potential future pupils had asked questions unto Zoey and Chase, none had wanted to ask Stacey anything, so I pitied her and took the occasion to come up with a question for her, something that was probably going to end in some sort of disaster. I asked Stacey about whether _iCarly_ was popular here at Pacific Coast Academy, and this was confirmed readily. Styacey was a so-called "Creddier", that is a person favouring a relationship between Fredward Benson and Carly Shay. In this moment, she did not recognise me as the archenemy numer one of Carly's web show, but this would sooner or later be inevitable. And those "Creddiers" were a real plague and definitely those people hating me most.

* * *

** 8.4. Conclusions**

* * *

After all, we visitors had learned a lot about this school during the last hours, and we were sure to find our way around, should we get accepted here. I was definitely going to look forward to being a pupil here, among some students like Wendy Gellar, Robert Carmichael, and Ashley Blake who were very well acquainted with Megan. And the next occasion to get accepted was the upcoming spring break.

* * *

** Chapter 9. London is calling.**

* * *

Still a few weeks were separating me from my switch to Pacific Coast Academy and from getting a lot closer to Megan Parker when Wendy Gellar, who had already been helpful during aforementioned visitors' day, shocked me with some important message from Malibu. More precisely, Zoey Brooks was about to leave the country and go far away, crossing the seven seas, in order to end up in an even more elitary and snobbish prep school near London, the capital of Great Britain. The reason for this switch was the promotion of her father into a new position, with some significantly higher salary and a trifle more responsibilities. There were still a few hours left for her in order to decide whether to join her parents to the old world or whether to stay in California. Her so-called friends were apparently reluctat to lose her, but they relied completely on Chase finally coming out in this moment and telling Zoey about his feelings since her first days on the hallowed campus of this most illustrous Californian prep school.

Let me give it a break in order to state that Zoey Brooks would have been the biggest loss for a school like Pacific Coast Academy since the invention of sliced bread. Oops, that had certainly been long before the foundation of the noble boarding school … no, it should certainly be phrased differently. The whoile school would have lost its identity without the blond Mary Sue. This is of course remarkable as the whole school had got a history of almost a century — or so I had to guess due to my lack of knowledge of the exact foundation dates — before going coeducative and letting someone like Zoey Brooks enroll. But there was no way around understanding that no person ever at this established elite school had formed and controlled life on the campus as much as the barbie doll that had turned alive. Pre-coeducative Pacific Coast Academy had most likely been rather proud of its "outstanding" traditions, but, on a bigger scale, it had been nothing but a pointless prison for kids and teenagers no different from any other school. Without Zoey, girls would have been the toys of the boys, especially of evil guys like Logan Reese, and it was too obvious that the blond Mary Sue's departure was most likely to make such a nightmare come true. The athletic teams of Pacific Coast Academy had been feeble until the arrival of Zoey Brooks, regardless of what the yearbooks tried to force us to believe. The reports had been manipulated by the board in order to prevent an alienation of the sponsors who had invested a not so trivial amount of bucks into the teams. The lack of a cheerleader squad had been a major stumbling block which had been removed by going coeducative, and Zoey, inspite of not being a cheerio, had created at least their outfit and fiormed the mentality of the cheerio girls, making them very self conscious instead of just toys of the male athletes as was the case at most other coeducative schools.

Dustin Brooks had also been facing the alternative of either to stay at Pacific Coast Academy or to follow his parents over to good old England, and he had chosen to stay, according to his own statement due to a girlfiend named Carie Velazquez, but Wendy Gellar knew it a lot better: Dustin had not got a girlfriend, and there was no such thing as a Carie Velazquez at Pacific Coast Academy. The poor little guy had really been hankering after four years older Lola Martinez for quite some time, which was of course hilarious not just because the age difference, but because Dustin deserved a lot better than a shallow actress. Lola had ignored him anyways and seen her best friemnd's little brother as nothing but some annoying pest, although she would not have dared to let overprotective Zoey know about this. But Dustin's real objections to London were based on his disgust concerning English kitchen and the weather of London, alias clouds, gales, rain, and especially fog. This was so totally different from what Dustin had been accustomed to for quite a few years already, as the weather of Malibu was almost always bright, warm, and sunny, almost all time a year. Strangely, Dustin did not even hesitate and try to wait for Zoey's decision, which was remarkable as he was emotionally strongly dependent on his elder sister, something the little bugger had tried to deny for several years, but which was inevitably true. A few weeks ago, he had pretended to be afraid of the villains in some Japanese horror movie[[59]] in order to push the Mary Sue into hosting him in her dormitory room for several days, against the will of Quinn and Lola. This plan had worked out fine, until he had been forced to admit to the proper reasons for his demeanour, videlicet the fact that he missed Zoey badly. Things would thus not be easier for him with ten thousand wet miles between them, or, in other words, Zoey would be a big loss for him and he was not willing to admit to that because otherwise many of his class mates would have deemed him totally uncool.

Back to Zoey's impending decision which, as we've seen, was based essentially on the opinion of Chase Bartholomew Matthews, the guy that had been longing for her during a period of more than three years. Clearly, one would have expected Chase to drop down onto his kneews, throw his face into the dirt near Zoey, and declare that he was by absolutely no means able to live any longer without her, losing her would have been a terminal condition beyond any hope of recovery. Of course this was supposed to influence Zoey's decision and make her finally reply Chase's feelings in kind. Wendy preferred such an outcome, for she deemed it similar to her former situation when she had wished so much that Drake had returned her feelings in kind. But there were some significant differences, more precisely, Wendy had been really addicted from the very start and never tried to hide her feelings for Drake, while Chase had not cared to come out for quite some time. In addition, Chase had cheated on Zoey on several occasions, his feelings notwithstanding. Wendy had not known the precise circumstances of Chase's inappropriate flirt with Lola Martinez and his almost engagement with that Rebecca, but I smelled something fishy. So I let Wendy investigate the situation in order to figure what was really behind Chase's relationships with Lola and Rebecca.

And, indeed, there were some informations about Lola Martinez and Chase Matthews. The latter had been like two years ago the tutor of biology for Lola[[60]], but that was already fishy because Chase had sucked at biology and needed tutoring himself[[61]]. Yet Zoey had suggested Chase as a tutor, probably just in order to get rid of him … she must have been feeling oppressed by his permanent presence, but she was too nice to tell him straight into the face. The subject of the biology lessons had been totally touchy, for it had been all about the birds and the trees and the flowers and the bees. Ashley Blake, anotyher little diva and friend of Wendy, told me the real reasons for Lola's demeanour: the starlet needed to practise making out with dweebs for the big screen of Hollywood. Rebecca was a different situation, as she had not been a student at Pacific Coast Academy, and Chase had claimed that she was from his hometown, but that was not really convincing. Ashley would have liked Rebecca badly to date her big brother Vince, sort of a future football star, but that was a different story altogether. But definitely there was no way whatsoever to get Rebecca to like Chase, either, and there must have been a dirty deal between them. Rebecca would have lost her good renown by dating voluntarily a bushy dweeb like Chase, and this was something impossible for her to risk. Whatever the situation, Chase's feelings for Zoey Brooks had not been honest as he used other girls — with or without their consential cooperation — in order to make the blond Mary Sue jealous. Regardless of what Chase Bartholomew Matthews told Zoey and his other friends, her departure was not going to be a big loss, and he just fooled himself into believiung so. Rather, Chase would sooner or later lose himself by hankering like an idiot after Zoey Brooks, three years after having met her first. According to rumours, he had fallen off his bike when spotting the barbie girl for the very first time, which was all too understandable.

Too bad for Chase, he was screwing up everything because he had heard of Zoey's potential departure only from tsome third sources, so he was very grumpy and did not even try to ask the Mary Sue to stay at Pacific Coast Academy. Under normal circumstances, this would have been enough reason for the barbie lady to get her belongings together on site and jump into the next plane from Los Angeles to London, saying good-bye to it all, including Chase. But then Wendy appeared on the plan, and she made Zoey believe that Dustin was in a real danger when she was not there for him, a danger caused by "bad girl Carie Velazquez". The possibility of a second Samantha Puckett shamelessly seducing and corrupting Dustin was too much for Zoey to stay calm, and she decided on site to stay in California for her little brother's sake.

This way, Pacific Coast Academy was saved from losing not only one of its most significant students ever, but also from losing its iden tity, because without Zoey the school would have stopped being itself, period.

* * *

** Chapter 10. As A New Student At PCA**

* * *

** 10.1. A New Life**

* * *

Finally, the time of waiting was over for me, and the time had come to move into my residence hall at Pacific Coast Academy as a regular student which was tantamount to the start into a new life.

Some of the kids were still in their vacations, so I did not yet get to see my room pals, but it was not too bad being all alone in here.

The formalities were done pretty fast, and I had already learned some of my way around when I visited for Mindy's scientific demonstration and during aforementioned visitors' day. I just had to get everything stamped in the administrational office and then received my key. It was impossible to lock yourself into a dormitory room, but you could easily lock yourself out, something experienced a lot by Zoey Brooks during her first days until she started wearing the key around her throat like a locket.

* * *

** 10.2. Left Behind**

* * *

While most students had been able to leave the campus during the vacations preceding this new semester, a few of them had been forced to stay here over those days.

One of them was aforementioned Stacey Dillsen, the cotton swab artist from Swampscott in Massachusetts who used to talk with a distinguished lisp. I had wondered why she had stayed behind, and she did not really know it, either. More precisely, her parents had promised her to pick her up at the beginning of the vacations and go with her to Colorado for some days of skiing and more fun oout there in the snow. Alas, neither Stacey's father nor her mother had ever arrived, and there was no news about them, either, which was really weird. My guess was that her parents had hated Stacey for her lisp and her hobby, and that they had sent her to a boarding school like this one, across the continent, just to get her away from themselves as fast as possible and as far as possible. Stacey had been born with her penetrant speech impediment, and her parents had always been ashamed of her. They were now indeed on skiing tour in Colorado, just without Stacey whom they had conveniently forgotten to pick up as promised during the preceding three months. OK, I was not able to know about this fact when coming to Pacific Coast Academy for the start of the term, but some time later, Megan Parker was going to confirm my guess because she knew Jessica[[62]], the daughter of the owners of the hotel booked by the Dillsens. Megan had sometimes spent her vacations with that girl, and thus she knew even that hotel perfectly well. Stacey was even more disappointed because Logan Reese, her crush since over a year, was still ignoring her. Indeed, the evil dandy made even a lot of fun of her, but usually either behind Stacey's back or when she was too confused to noticed. It would have been better for her to give up on that disgusting pervert and look for a decent boyfriend, but who would have been that? In a glimpse, an idea struck me out of the blue. I remembered Megan's ridiculous step-brother, Joshuah Nichols, who was very much in Stacey's league because he was a bit clumsy and insecure in the public, and he had got strong artistic inclinations, in his case skills in knitting and drawing pictures.[[63]] Of course, there was also something in it for me, as with a girlfriend at Pacific Coast Academy, Joshuah would have to show up here more often and possibly take Megan along in his car, allowing me to meet her on and off. Of cpurse, getting Stacey and Joshuah to match was by absolutely no means a trivial task, as Josh was rather hankering after popular girls, and Stacey was still coveting popular boys and thus be rather into Drake Parker than into Josh Nichols. Thus such a match needed to be arranged very carefully, yet it would definitely be worth any trouble whatsoever to go through. Stacey would especially have to leave her wretched life behind and undergo a rebirth.

Other kids had been staying involuntarily behind foir a completely different reason, and these included Zoey Brooks, Lola Martinez, Quinn Pensky, Logan Reese, Chase Bartholomew Matthews, and Michael Barret. Their plans had been those of making a trip into Yosemite park in order to watch the birth of young wild animals. Their "responsible" adult should have been Coco Wexler, well, she was by absolutely no stretch responsible, and this was totally well known among all students at Pacific Coast Academy. A year ago, Coco had gone camping with a group of middle school kids, including Dustin Brooks, Wendy Gellar, Robert Carmichael, and Ashley Blake, and she had lost several kids out there in the wilderness to be found later by ranger scouts.[[64]] She had already been fired by Dean Rivers for a variety of mishaps, but Zoey had been talking Coco back into her job, and this was definitely for the worse. Fortunately, this year, Coco was prevented from taking the kids on a camping trip to Yosemite because she had carelessly killed her future mother in law[[65]], an even worse wench, and had thence been in desperate need of patching her inept relationship during the vacations. This way, the teenies were safe from getting lost among wild bears guarding their newborn kids.

* * *

** 10.3. New Student James**

* * *

I was not the one and only new student here at Pacific Coast Academy for this term, there had been some dozen of them.

One of them was a tall blond rake named James Garrett[[66]], said to be from Santa Fé in New Mexico, but I remembered the same guy under a different name from Seattle. It took me some time to ponder the details, but then it was all clear who this was, and then I concluded that James Garrett was exactly the same as Jake Crendle, a one time almost boyfriend of aforementioned Carly Shay who had broken her heart badly. It was easy to figure that he had committed similar evil deeds alrready before that, and that he was up to a whole lot more of that sort. In that moment, I did not know at all that James had already been visitig this campus a year before using a different name, videlicet Dennifer, a name I had never heard before, and he had dated Stacey for a few minutes and then broken her heart. This underlines the inevitable fact that the cotton swab artist needed to stay away from rakes of any sort and stick to guys like Joshuah Nichols. James did not really behave like a reckless womaniser, but this was not necessary as droves of girls kept on hankering after him, no matter what, and even Logan Reese was worried about the possible birth of a new era at Pacific Coast Academy, and era where no longer Logan, but James Garrett was the new top rake. For that reason, Logan was totally hostile to James, no matter what, and refused to help him in any way getting started — nobody but Stacey and Dustin Brooks had seen James as Dennifer, and neither of them was able to remember immediately.

The only one who cared to help James was, little surprise, blond barbie girl Zoey Brooks, and she took it a bit too far. First, Logan spread the rumour that Zoey and James were now a couple, and this, of course, hurt Chase Bartholomew Matthews even more. The bushy dweeb had apparently not learned from his pains from the last three years and needed to suffer some more. Zoey and James denied the fact and almost killed Logan for the rumourm, but just a few seconds later, they were seen kissing in the trees, like many couples, and everything looked like the birth of a new blond dream team, of course only in appearance, as James was thoroughly dishonest, I just needed to prove that he was cheating on Zoey already just as Cory had cheated perversely on Megan. Maybe the latter was the only one able to talk some sense into the Mary Sue and save her from permanent heart damage on the long run? I had to try to get Wendy to talk to Megan about this looming danger.

Chase Bartholomew Matthews, on the other hand, kept on feeling worse and worse, as it was impossible for him to survive watching Zoey make out regularly with some other boy. He definitely needed a better girlfriend, and Wendy Gellar had got an idea: Adelaide Singer, her aforementioned remote relative and friend from the north east, looked like an unfabulously perfect match for Chase, as she liked writing song lyrics, play the guitar, and she was absolutely unfabulous, just like Chase. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania and New Jersey were so far away from the greater Los Angeles area, it was really going to require a lot of most painful efforts to effect the birth of one of the most excellent relationships in the history of the United States.

* * *

** Chapter 11. The Orphic Priestess**

* * *

** 11.1. Canasta Club**

* * *

In order to get Joshuah Nichols to come to Pacific Coast Academy in order to meet Stacey, Wendy had deviced a strange ploy. Joshuah Nichols was an expert for playing the southern american card game of Canasta[[67]], something related to Gin Rummy or Bridge, and that's why Werndy had suggested officially, in the administration office and in the face of Dean Rivers, to hire Joshuah Nichols as an aviser for this freshly founded club.

The trick appeared to work out well, and today, Joshuah Nichols was coming in order to give the first session of the canasta club and look at the long sign up list. Well, the list was defininitely not long, at least by no means as long as Joshuah had hoped for, but this fact was by absolutely no means capable of deterring Josh Nichols from opening his club. He was up to participating in the national canasta championships until the end of next year, something that Pacific Coast Academy had never reached, let alone won, and he demonstrated a lot of faith in the remote possibility that his team would win the final tournament to be held in New York City.

And my expectations had not been really wrong, as indeed Megan Parker had snuck into the back of his car in order to make it to this campus, her primary intention being that of meeting Wendy and Ashley again.

* * *

** 11.2. Choconuts**

* * *

Quinn Pensky was allergic to nuts, but she liked chocolates, and thus she had got the obnoxious habit of buying choconuts, videlicet nut cores covered with chocolate, and to lick the hull off the cores, leaving the latter behind in a bowl. This was of course a very naughty and disgusting demeanour, especially in the case of randon bypassers, not aware of Quinn's deed, picking up the stripped nut corses in order to swallow them, complete with all the icky germs coming forth from Quinn Pensky's saliva.

And now Lola Martinez, the wannabe Hollywood star, was about doing the inevitable, in other words, she was chewing on the naked nut cores and thus comtaminating herself with the geek princess's germs and her saliva. Honestly spoken, she had deserved such an accident due to one of her recent shameful deeds, more precisely, she had insulted the mother of Zoey and Dustin Brooks.

During that week, Dustin was trying to earn monety in order to buy a web cam for his mother, so that they could chat easier across the ocean by means of all those web chat services. And when hearing about it, Lola remarked that Dustin's mom would not have sent him to a boarding school if she had wanted to see him more often. This was really mean to Dustin and his mother, and Dustin had definitely got more faith in his mom than an arrogant diva like Lola Martinez had in any of her friends and relatives.

On the other hand, germs were germs and definitely more evil than any human being whatsoever, including Samantha Puckett, so nort even Lola deserved getting perverted and corrupted by those, be it from conntaminated nuts or whatever else. But Quinn, as a geek girl and iventor, should really have done something about that, like inventing a squirting gas capable of remove the germs from the nuts she had previously licked naked without, and without making them taste icky. Talking about Quinn, she entered her dormitory rroom 101 Brenner Hall, and saw Lola chewing on the nut cores she had previously left behind uncovered, and she did not try to intervene and stop Lola, probably because she was afraid of her roomie's wrath. Only in the end did she admit to her unintentional onslaught on Lola's health, leaving the young diva even a lot more upset and take it all out on Stacey by vomiting all over her new top.

* * *

** 11.3. Finally Megan**

* * *

In these very moments, Megan Parker was out on the campus, and Wendy Gellar was dragging her slowly my way. My heart started beating at quadruple speed when I saw her entering my lounge, with her oboe in her hands. I remembered the moment when I saw her rubbing that instruments carefully with her fingers before performing in the symphonic hall of Los Angeles. This was more or less like a magical ceremonial, oer so it appeared to me, and it was certainly very addictive. Wendy and Megan kept on talking, as the former had apparently got a lot to talk to her former best friend, after many weeks of separation. But sooner or later, or so I expected, Megan's restless eyes would wander my way, wouldn't they? I started rhapsodising silently over Megan, the everlasting flame of divinity.

After a few minutes, Megan Parker stumbled into me, and she coughed silently, "Nevel Papperman, solo pianist from Seattle?"

I nodded solemnly, but saying a word was apparently beyond me in that moment.

Megan smiled and remarked, "nice to meet you again, but do you know that my music is not just entertainment, it is also religion?"

Honestly said, this was not much of a surprise for me, and I had not for no reason associated Megan's attitude with divinity, so I nodded most solemnly, but again lacking the capability of talking.

Megan explained, "to be more precise, I am a priestess of Orpheus, the divine hero of the old Greek speaking world."

I was indeed familiar with the ancoent orphic cult , the religion featuring the wandering prophet with his musical instrument, the lyra, and comparing him to Megan Parker was more than appropriate. I did by no means reject the faith that the sound of Megan's oboe had similar powers when compared to that of the lyra of the miraculous prophet which had charmed the wild life and even so-called inanimate objects of his environment. Of course Orpohaios was martyred at the hand of many ignorant fools who were unable to appreciate the subtle sounds of his lyra, exactly like nowadays Samantha Puckett or Fredward Benson. And thus ultimate martyrdom made Orphaios and those sharing the faith in him even more adorable. I bowed down deeply in front of Megan Parker.

She chuckled noisily, "cool!" Then she grinned all over the place.

By then, I did not exactly know how much power her oboe performance had got really, but it must have been a real lot.

Megan remarked, "so, you think that there's another creep like Cory at this school? Tall and blond and … typical heartbreaker, you know …"

I affirmed this question vigorously, and I told Megan about James Garrett alias Jake Crendle,and that I had not got yet much of an evidence that he was cheating on Zoey Brooks. The blond Mary Sue was now occupied with a different problem,videlicet that of Dustin getting permanerntly abused and insulted by Logan Reese for whom he worked in order to make the bucks necessary for the web cam.

Megan shook her head. "Dustin may get a cheap used one from Wayne Gilbert, a student here at Pacific Coast Academy" She had explaine dthat Wayne had been her upstream provider for gadgets used by her in order to prank Drake and Josh for several years.

Zoey and Dustin did not like Wayne, but this sounded like some sort of a chance. They also accepted Megan's help in order to teach Logan Reese a lesson for being mean to Dustin, whatever that meant. This was certainly better than using the PCA network and its reporter, Jeremiah Trottman, in order to make KLogan's tantrum a subject of public discussions.

Unfortunately, Megan was at the moment not able to stay for too long, but she promised to be back, sooner or later, allowing us to spend some more time together. For the time being, she still needed to talk to her friend Ashley Blake for an hour or too, which was also totally understandable.

I used the time to think a bit about Megan's explanations. The orphic faith featured quite essentially the concepot of reincarnation, more precisely, metempsychosis, and I had often wondered about this very possibility. Maybe, or so, I speculated, Megan knew who I had been in previous lives, so long ago, so far away …

* * *

** 11.4. Stacey and Josh**

* * *

The plan concerning Stacey seemed to work out better than expected, as the lisping cotton swab freak was now enrolled in Joshuah Nichols's Canasta club. There were only two other students in there, videlicet some Mark del Figgalo, hitherto a boyfriend of Quinn Pensky, and some Brooke Margolyn, a new student for this term, just like me. Stacey had already tried to get into several clubs at Pacific Coast Academy, such as the astronomy club and the yoga club, but she had always been rejected, ignored, or driven out by insane fellow pupils and avisers who objected to her lisp. This was not a problem for Joshuah Nichols who had often been ridiculed for his really big head. Megan had often made funny remarks about it, but she was not mean to Josh for no other reason than that, as opposed to a few other pupils at Josh's high school.

Josh had also seen the campus cinema, and he was up to recommending the same unto Helen Baxter who was looking for new challenges since Première Theater was getting too small for her incessantly growing ambitions. Finally, he was also going to get Drake Parker and his rock band to perform at the upcoming junior prom. Drake had often got problems with Josh's management, but this job was most definitely worth all the troubles hitherto experienced.

* * *

** 11.5. Spit And Swallow**

* * *

Quinn Pensky was dared by Lola to drink a glass of Blix she had already had in her mouth and spat back into the container, for only this way, Lola would forgive Quinn's deed of letting her eat the contaminated nut cores. Quinn was already very close to swallowing the disgusting sewage, and Lola stopped her in time, as she had now got — or so she pretended — enough faith in Quinn's regret and remorses for having let Lola swallow the poisoned nuts. But had Lola really forgiven the whole thing? Most people will have thought like this, but I was more careful, for, just as Lola had abused Chase for her acting practice, she was totally able to use her room mates as well.

* * *

** Chapter 12. Quinn's Demise**

* * *

** 12.1. DAKA wreaks more havoc.**

* * *

During her best years, and these had even been back before her transfer to Pacific Coast Academy, Quinn Pensky had been a perfect wallflower and nerd girl. Unfortunately, she had worn down a lot during the last few years, and this was apparently not much of an accident, it was systematic corruption by Lola Martinez, oh, I knowm this sounds like a really stern accusation of the Hollywood diva, but there was no way around this conclusion. As a seasoned actress, Lola was able to manipulate her fellow pupils at whim, as already evident from her abuse of Chase Bartholomew Matthews for her acting practice. And the consequences were totally detrimental and catastrophic.

Among other things, Quinn Pensky was working for DAKA Shoes, the same company that had already caused a lot of trouble for the career of Drake Parker by mutilating his song for the purpose of their sales promotions, by developing a new and revolutionary piece of footwear known as the "techfoot"[[68]]. But due to her increasing mental degeneration, she was unable to complete her task and invent bug-free techfoots. Now, what were those boots supposed to do, anyways? There were several built-in features, but there were even more bugs … OK, the features included especially a built-in wireless network access, and that was the crown of Quinn's efforts. For many years, she had worked on a new operational system known as "Quinndows QP"[[69]] which, unfortunately had not made it very far inspite of being — even in the appreciation of Quinn's enemy Wayne Gilbert — probably the world's best and most refined operational system … ever! Quinn's downfall was caused by her boyfriends, as usual, because her relationships were based on primitive and vulgar desires.

Quinn Pensky's first boyfriend had been a certain Mark del Figgalo, a guys whose ancestry appeared to be from some place i Italy recorded for its fig plantations. He was most of the time very apathetical and quiet, so he was not much of an obstacle for Quinn, but there had been a few problems, anyways, especially concerning the fledgling development of "Quinndows QP". More precisely, Mark had accidentally poured hinese sauce all over Quin's hard drive and made it malfunction, because he did not really like most sauces[[70]], which was of course utterly detrimental to the improvement of QP and thence of the techfoots sold by DAKA Shoes. It was really absurd how Quinn had come to that Mark del Figgalo, but she had been corrupting herself, under the instructions of her mentor Zoey Brooks, in order to get him to date her, which was definitely no good. He had — unbeknownst to Quinn or Zoey — already had a girlfriend at that time, some Courtney[[71]]But at least Mark was just careless and apathetical, not deliberately evil. And nevertheless, this relationship had now all of a sudden, after three long years, come to a sudden end. The reason was the arrival of aforementioned Brooke Margolyn, definitely not a dweeb like Mark del Figgalo, but equally interested in knitting, collecting rare stones, and similar stuff like Quinn's expiring boyfriend, and thus a whole lot more suitable for him than Quinn Pensky.

In the beginning, Mark did not have the guts to break with Quuinn and just requested a little break for whatever reason, and there were a few understandable possible reasons, but then he was caught in flagrante delicto with Brooke Margolyn, and this seemed to throw Quinn into an excessively depressive or hysterical mood, whatever … That was of course very dangerous, for Quinn was not unlikely to end up with some filthy creep of whatever sort and betray her true identity as a nerdy wallflower even more, which would mean turmoil and havoc all over California.

* * *

** 12.2. The Stalking Stallion**

* * *

At the same time, Michael Barret was confronted with a different problem, more precisely, he was followed all over the campus by some hitherto unbeknownst horse lurking on the campus. It had started when Michael was fetching a gift from one of Logan Reese's many step mothers from the Pacific Coast Academy Post Office, and that present was a box containing several cookies. The horse refused to budge from Michael, which, at first glance, appeared to be caused by the cookies, but even after the cakes had all been swallowed by the stallion, Michael was by absolutely no means left in peace. The horse stayed by his site always and everywhere, in the classes, the lounge, the cafeteria, even in the showers, and this was such an infinite pain in the pony tail and an annoyance for everyone crossing his and the horse's way, both pupils, teachers, and staff of Pacific Coast Academy. Maybe Michael Barret had been an equestrian master in his one of his former lives? But this time around, he was totally afraid of the equidæ, especially as he had been kicked into his face by one a few years ago.[[72]]

I had to discuss that possibility with Megan who, according to a statement of Wendy, understood quite a bit about equidæ. The most important fact was that she had once ordered a zebra from the interweb[[73]] and tricked Drake and Josh into feeding and cleaning after it for a week or so, by claiming that the stripes on pedestrian crossings were raised on zebras. The boobs were apparently rigged and ready for believing any nonsense, they were so worthless. Apparently, the zebra was no longer living with the Parkers and Nichols in San Diego, but it had moved on to a horse ranch not far away from Los Angeles and owned by one Faye Dunnaway[[74]]

Incidentally, Chase Bartholomew Matthews had always wanted a zebra,[[75]] not a horse, but what is a zebra short of a horse with stripes? Michael had thence suggested to render the horse unto Chase as a gift, after painting black and white stripes onto its fur. But regardless of the beast's outfit, stripes or plaid or monochrome, the campus of Pacific Coast Academy and its buildings were absolutely not a really good place for the stallion, it had not been a decent place two years ago for Otis[[76]], the alpaca of Quinn Pensky, either. For that reason, Wendy had begged Megan to show up and take care of the situation.

And my sweetheart was no minute later, more precisely, she stepped into the lounge of Michael's classes exactly when the horse was leaving the remains of its digestion all over the floor. Fortunately, she had already got her oboe in her hand and was able to charm the stallion, just like in the good old times Orpheus, and get him to follow her outside and especially away from Michael Barret. And then Faye Dunnaway showed up as well, informed in time by Megan parker, and she recognised the stallion as hers, named Winchester. The beast had run away a few days ago, and now she was glad to have it back, and that before some creep was able to paint it all with stars and stripes, or whatever was the pattern of the day.

* * *

** 12.3. On The Horse Ranch**

* * *

Chase and Megan accompanied Winchester on his way back to the ranch, as Megan was not opposed to leaving her zebra to Chase and give it the name "Zebooh". Chase met the striped monster, and he was totally keen on accepting Megan's gracious offer without a trace of hesitation. The stavles also hosted a talking pony[[77]] which was pparently a big fan of a band produced by Gustavo Rocque and named "Beyoncé" and which sang over and over again about its love for pancakes.

The ranch would by all means have also been a great place for aforementioned alpaca Otis, but Quinn Pensky had apparently forgotten about her former favourite pet due to her perversely insane desire for human boys.

* * *

** 12.4. The Most Evil Seducer**

* * *

Actually, the oprince of dandies, Logan Reese, had struck once more and seduced and abused Quinn Pensky in the most ruthless way during the days of her uttermost weakness after seeing herself forced to give up on Mark del Figgalo. Logan had already pulled off a similar stunt three years ago when trying to abuse and seduce Zoey brooks for the school play, but this time, Quinn was much too weak to recognise the plain evilness and perversity of Logan's demeanour.

Being attracting opposites, the relationship of Quinn Pensky and Logan Reese could not be considered as anything but an expression of purely bestialic desire and was thus excessively foul and corrupt. Oops, "bestialic" was in this case rude to Zeebooh and Winchester, one of the cutest couples at Faye Duunaway's ranch. It showed how much Quinn Pensky had submitted her self to self betrayal during the last years, and it was not easy to tell whether and how it was possible to save Quinn from her decay and self abandon, the destiny worse than death.

By mere divine grace, Megan and I had already overcome these stupid base instincts to which Quinn has just fallen victim. And my sweetie was totally worried about the situation of Drake who was about going to be lost when clinging to his vulgar desires instead of looking for truth and grace. Strangely, Elvis Presley, one of the most renowned forerunners of Drake Parker, was rumoured to still live in Graceland. Yet I did not see all too much sense in it, but Megan was trying to get at the bottom of the magical impact of the legend of Elvis onto the life of her brother.

Likewise, a relationship between Stacey Dillsen and Joshuah Nichols would have had the huge potential of transcending animalic desires, yet both of them did not yet give up on their inappropriate dreams of finding a popular boy or girl, respectively. And just like in the case of Quinn Pensky, this sort of dreams was a pernicious trap. Many people fall into it and don't recognise the extreme bitterness of what appears sweet to them. Would Josh and Stacey be able to avoid this trap, and would Quinn find out of this state of despair and decadenece?

* * *

** Chapter 13. Boots are made for walking.[[78]]**

* * *

** 13.1. Charity Walkathon**

* * *

Zoey Brooks and her brother Dustin were already preparing for the impending charity walkathon even at Pacific Coast Academy, organised by some Carmine. The kids who did not participate as athletes were told to offer a previously chosen amount of bucks per mile that was covered by some walker of his choice. Of course you did not know in advance, unless you had got a very good sixth sense, how many miles your chosen participant was to make, so this was a very risky thing. Some students, such as Lola Martinez who bet thirty bucks for Dustin, were too dumb to read the small print and thus did not get that the offers were per mile. This of course cried for some exorbitantly insane amount of havoc and turmoil.

The whole event was not an official part of the annual schedule of Pacific Coast Academy, but it was rather organised by some external organisation under the custody of some Carmine, a really creepy guy worse than Logan Reese and Lance Rivers together. Carmine was probably not a real name. either, but … hey! Now I remembered that "Carmine" was one of Samantha Puckett's uncles[[79]], no, don't trust Sam there, it was most likely a code name for all henchmen of her father, a renowned criminal who had been hiding for over ten years already, without even letting Samantha or her mother Pamela[[80]] know. So I had got the creepy thought that the whole charity organisation was just a money washer for organised crime, and there had to be done something about this. I did not hesitate informing Megan about these circumstances, and she was going to show up soon. My sixth sense told me that the whole charity event was nothing but one big fraud.

* * *

** 13.2. Clackers**

* * *

Half of California appeared to be obsessed with so-called clackers, a toy recently imported from the Netherlands[[81]] and now very popular even at Pacific Coast Academy. It consisted of two plasti balls connected with a string. This was certainly a very simple concept, and it was really amazing to watch how almost adult boys were addicted to it. Joshuah Nichols had been one of the first clacker freaks, but now Michael Barret had fallen for the same obbnoxious disease. Of course the collisions of the two balls caused some insane noise, and this was hard to bear for Logan Reese and Chase Bartholomew Matthews, but Michael Barret did not care. The latter offered Chase a bet involving a pool billiard trick. If he succeeded with the latter, he was allowed to play with his clackers every time a day in their dormitory room for the whole rest of the year. Logan was not present, he was most likely making out in an exorbitantly shameless and perverse manner with Quinn Pensky in some silent corner, or that was what I was sensing to happen in front of my inner eye, and this excruciatingly disgusting abomination made me almost puke over and over again.

And now Michael was seconded by Joshuah Nichols, not just a clacker freak, but also a master of pool who had often — albeit only when persuaded by Drake Parker — tricked careless pool players who did not trust there parapsychological senses into a bet by behaving clumsily, but then, after the bet had been established, he had played in an excessively skillful manner and won the stakes with ease.[[82]] So, now Josh was assisting Michael, and there was not the slightest chance for Chase to win the bet, and thus Michael would be allowed to annoy Chase for the whole rest of the year around the clock with the sound of bouncing clackers.

* * *

** 13.3. Mile After Mile**

* * *

Megan had arrived and was now talking about the tricky situation with her aforementioned expert for law, videlicet Claire Sawyer, future shark.

The Afro american law book freak explained that it was illegal to request donations from minors without the consent of their responsible adults, and this was the last anchor to get out, provided that there had not been any parental consense. Unfortunately, the whole administration of Pacific Coast Academy would doubtlessly get into troubles. Using her hidden senses, Claire anticipated a law suit of the parents against Dean Rivers and the board of Pacific Coast Academy because of allowing their pupils to perform in this illegal charity event organised by some third party. Another problem was that the kids had to inform their parents about that abuse, and something told me that Lola Martinez and so on were not exactly willing to get their parents involved, otherwise they would have asked them for their permission to participate in the donation action beforehand.

I was not up to participating actively in the walkathon, but, all of a sudden, Megan told me to do so, making me startle for consternation. And not only was I supposed to walk, but also to wear those techfoots produced by DAKA Shoes!

Recently, Carly Shay and her web cast had been contracted by DAKA for sales production, using their web show, of course not without some huge payment. But of course there was the hitch that the boots were not functioning properly, and even Carly and Freddie had come to feel this the hard way. More precisely, the built-in wireless interweb access alias "Shoe LAN" had wiped out most of the data stored on Fredward Benson's new laptop, a genuine Di Voglio which he had bought from the money he had earned for the sales action. Carly's boots had randomly been perforated, and they had thereupon caught fire without prior warning. Of course the viewers of the show were not willing to watch that crap anymore. Unfortunately, the contract between Carly's web show and DAKA Shoes was not water tight, and so the creeps were able to keep the bucks and get ouyt of the contract. But, in any case, the techfoots had not been fixed. Well, they had not been fixed officially by DAKA because Quinn was still unable to do so due to being completely stuck in a perverted and vulgar affair. But Megan had got Eric Blonowitz, a nerdy friend of Drake Parker, to repair those boots. And now I was sent forth in order to test these boots which, according top Megan, were made for walking. Eric had got the plans for the footwear from Joseph Braxley[[83]], a greasemonkey working for DAKA who had previously had his own junk yard not far from the campus of Pacific Coast Academy and often repaired damaged things for the kids, such as cars, bikes, and squeaking doors. Eric had not been abvle to persuade the grewasemonkeyy, though, but this had been the work of Megan, well, it was not that difficult after all, for Joe could be bribed easily with a sandwich, and this was easy to anticipate with some paranormal perception. Megan commanded me to shake my booties, as the boots had been made for walking.

And now I was out on the dusty road, well, and the boots did really work better than anything before. I was defin itely not a trained tracker, but with these boots, even the lame and crippled ones would have barely any troubles making mile after mile. The wireless interweb access was equally cool, I was able to communicate with Megan even during the walk. The built-in foot ventilation worked better than that inside the lounge of my dormitory block. I even passed by Dustin Brooks who had worked hard for this walkathon event, and who made twenty miles. But after twenty-five miles, even I was exhausted, and thence I had to call it a nice try, for some "Work-out" Dave[[84]] was much faster and was about making almost fifty miles. Well, Dave was a trained athlet, while I was definitely nothing like that, and this was the scope of the exercise.

* * *

** 13.4. The Cosa Nostra**

* * *

When I was back on the campus, I saw policemen under the lead of officer David Alejandro Vega, a kinsman of Lola Martinez, arrest Carmine who admitted to being a fellow criminal of old Mr. Puckett, but he would not betray his master, anyways. My sixth sense concerning the essence of this chief of the charity org had not gone astray. But was this also valid concerning my sensed adulterous activities of James Garrett alias Jake Crendle alias Dennifer alias who-know-what?

DAKA Shoes was, on the other hand, deeply ashamed because some of the customers had been able to fix their problems by hand within two days, as opposed to their paid henchman who had not been able to do so during the last few months. Now they were going to pay my own web site, Nevelocity, for spreading the message about the corrected techfoots. By the way my troubles with Carly Shay had started when she wanted to bribe me into publishing a recommendation for her web show on my web site. But that was a totally different issue. Now the creeps from iCarly were in a stinky mood for having left me the real business with the techfoots.

Alas, given the abominable misery in which Quinn was stuck, and in which she was rejoicing all foolishly, I was in no way able to enjoy the deal with DAKA Shoes. And not even my sixth senses were able to tell me whether Quinn was still savable or not.

Lola Martinez sighed for relief, as she did not have to pay six hundred bucks for the twenty miles made by Dustin Brooks. Well, she made lots of money as an actress, but it was frozen on an account controlled by her parents until Lola's eighteenth birthday. During the last days, Lola had tried in vain to learn knitting, and now Josh was taking care of that, making her vomit over and over because he was such a dweeb.

* * *

** Chapter 14. The Return Of Vince Blake**

* * *

** 14.1. The Expelled Quarterback**

* * *

Vincent, the elder brother of little diva Ashley Blake, had been playing football for the Pacific Coast Academy team already as a middle school boy, and as a freshman he had been assigned the burden of a captain and quarterback by Coach Keller, a totally disgusting creep of a gym teacher, no strings attached. And a year ago, this team had been very close to striking the biggest deal in the history of Pacific Coast Academy, the Californian state championship.

As aforementioned, this improvement of the team had only been possible due to the amission of girls to the school, allowing for an own cheerio squad. male cheerleaders were usually frowned upon and believed to be queers and softies, with detrimental consequences in later life, so very few boys would even consider this choice. As a crutch, the administration of Pacific Coast Academy had used to hire cheerio girls from nearby schools, such as Palmwood, Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts, James K. Polk, Silver Springs[[85]], Lakewood, Brewster, Eastridge[[86]], on a daily base, which was of course just an emergency solution with several drawbacks. Not only were they barely integrated into events like pep rallies which strengthend the bonds of the school, there was not eve a trace of a continuity. Even during the first two years of coeducations, girls were a vast minotrity, and thus there were npt many suitable cheerio girls around, triggering the necessity of hiring a few external cheerio girls as well.

Only the third year of coeducation saw a cheerio squad of Pacific Coast Academy strong enough to do without extrinsic reinforcements, and this had been the ultimative boost for the football team and Vince Blake. Alas, there was one huge problem, videlicet the school required sufficiently good marks in all subjects of the students in orde to allow them to participate in the extracurricular activities at the expense of curricular activities, and many of the football jocks, including Vince Blake, were definitely too dumb or too lazy for learning, well, they did not have the time for it because the training sessions were very demanding. Needless to say, some of them did not get anywhere without cheating, of course not each attempt was recorded and thence punished.

But one nice evening, Chase Bartholomew Matthews was right there in order to catch Vince Blake in flagrante delicto. The latter had been about copying the teachers' results for the next written test. Vince had blackmailed Chase into silence, but in the end, this did not quite work out, and the bushy head had denounced the quarterback, contracting thusly the wrath of the whole football team and many others. As a consequence, Vince Blake had been suspended for a week, including an upcoming big match deciding over woe or glory of the football team. Needless to say, Vince and his closest pals had not exactly been very glad about about this verdict, and they had ganged up inorder to beat up Chase, and also Logan, Michael, and Mark who happened to stand in their way. Well, I was sure that Logan was deliberately getting beaten up in order to impress the Pacific Coast Academy girls. Likewise, he had most likely done so during the wrestling regionals when he got squished by wrestling ox Chuck Javers who had previously ground Zoeey Brooks to gravel.[[87]] This guess was in perfect harmony with Logan's feigned defenselessness after getting his credit card cancelled.[[88]] Unfortunately, Logan's pals were much too naïve or too stupid to notice that reckless perversity, and even Quinn Pensky had fallen for that deceit, as we have seen. Whatever … Dean Rivers had thereupon been forced to expel the brute jock.

Ashley Blake had by absolutely no means been happy about Vince's expulsion, and she had been looking forward to his return. During Vince';s time at Pacific Coast Academy, he had also been Ashley's bodyguard, but then he had to be replaced with some Sarah Kyla[[89]]. The expulsion had been meant for good, but Ashley had used her acting prowess in order to teach Vince to feign being no longer a mean jock of the sort, and thence the expulsion was cancelled, leading to the return of the football jock. Of course he had not changed a bit and was now sure up to getting back at Chase.

* * *

** 14.2. The Jock's Revenge**

* * *

Of course, beating up Chase once more would have got Vince just expelled again and thrown into prison or something, and Ashley's plans were a whole lot more subtle. Instead of applying the good old brute force methods, Ashley advised Blake to hurt Chase in a manner that was even harder to heal than broken bones and squished guts. Basically, charming Zoey and dating her in front of his eyes would have meant instadeath to Chase, but unfortunately, the blond Mary Sue was already taken by James. The tall rake's supposed adulteries were still not provable, so bear with it! So the next best choice was no other than Lola Martinez who happened to be one of Ashley Blake's closest competitors for the next Oscar next to Quinn's cousin Camille Roberts.

I would have been really upset if Vince had actually tried to seduce and to abuse the blond barvie girl, but in the case of Lola Martinez, I did not really have any qualms, as the Hollywood diva had already committed lots of disgusting things, such as abusing Chase for her acting practice. Now it was even interesting to watch Chase's reactions. Of course seducxing Lola needed to be planned carefully, but Ashley had practised with Vince for many an hour and more. Ashley had also studied Lola's curriculum very carefully which allowed Vince to strike fairly efficiently, and he had chosen the yoga club as the right moment.

Finally, the plan appeared to have worked out, and Michael was very much dismayed, Logan just feigned being concerned. Chase Bartholomew Matthews did not die instantly, as he would have had in the case of watching Vince make out with Zoey, but he was thrown into a horrible depression from which he was unlikely to recover for the next two years. After a few days, Zoey and everyone of her gang but Chase had forgivcen Vince and thence let down Chase, nowadays extrinsic to Zoey Brooks's gang that had been his home for four years.

* * *

** 14.3. Vaccaro's**

* * *

Of course, Pacific Coast Academy had got its own cafeteria, a very well assorted one at that, as nobody should complain about. Likewise, there were many vendor machines, booths, carts, and pubs on the campus, the most popular and renowned among them being no other than kazu's Sushi Rox! Eating in extrinsic restaurants was neither necessary nor in general allowed, let alone affordable by any stretch except on very rare occasions.

The most well-known restaurants in the vicinity of our campus were Pete and Sam[[90]] and Vaccaro[[91]].The latter was indicated as a six star restaurant in the national touriosts' guide from the last year and of course a hell of expensive. In general, teachers of Pacific Coast Academy were not able to afford a dinner over there, and for ths reason, Logan Reese could easily bribe teachers with cioupons for a free dinner at said noble restaurant.[[92]] This was most particularly remarkable as the teachers at Pacific Coast Academywere the best and thus most likeley among the best paid teachers in California.[[93]]

As aforementioned, Logan Reese was the only one who was regularly able to pay for a dinner in the noble restaurant, he used this possibility shamelessly in order to abuse and seduce girls, and this time around, Quinn Pensky was the corresponding victim. They still tried to keep their most blasphemic relationship secret, as everyone sane knew very well that it was as perverted as can be. Of course, nobody would at the moment have believed the news of them dating, so spreading the shocking message would ghave been in vain, and it was absolutely necessary to get them caught in flagrante delicto by someone like Zoey Brooks.

Unfortunately, the blond Mary Sue was still totally absorbed in her relationshio with James Garrett alias Jake Crendle alias … and their main problem was not that of secrecy — everyone knew about them —, but their lack of privacy. They did not always want their friends around when they had wort of a date, and the only place to be together alone was apparently something like Vaccaro. This way Zoey would have a possibility of stumbling into Logan and Quinn committing disgusting perversities, but she was too much obsessed with James and would hardly ever notice. Where had James got the bucks for Vaccaro's from, anyways? According to his own statements, he had worked in the woodshop of his uncle Hank[[94]] during the last summer, just as usual. Yet James would blow all of his savings meant for college just in order to celebrate a dinner for two with his girlfriend, and this made the whole thing smell more fishy than the contents of Kazu's trash bin after half a week of rotting away. This was of course nothing short of being expected in the case of a creep like James Garrett who was probably cheating on Zoey with a whole host of girls, anyways.

Fortunately, Megan Parker was around and she had already forged a plan in order to get Zoey saved from the fangs of an adulterous tall blond rake and to get Quinn to recognise the hitherto biggest mistake in her life, right at Vaccaro's. Had she found some of James's other current girlfriends? I wondered who those were, but my sweetie wanted to surprise me, so she did not tell me in advance.

* * *

** Chapter 15. Parallel Dates**

* * *

I was sitting in Wendy Gellar's dormitory room, watching her lap top. She remarked that Megan was about to start the live broadcast from the dining hall of Vaccaro. Of course I had to wonder how Megan had snuck a web cam into Vaccaro's — she probably knew someone, somehow, from somewhere.

My sweetie's face showed up in another window, and now she explained even how she had done it, and this had involved Gustavo Rocque, the record label owner of Drake Parker. The lord of rock and his boss Griffin had had a business dinner last night in Vaccaro's and stuff …

The web cam showed us now the dining hall which was already getting full, complete with Quinn Pensky and Logan Reese who were already committing quite a few reckless perversities. James and Zoey, on the other hand, were not yet here, although they had just left the campus, but this was probably just a matter of a few minutes. As usual, Logan encouraged his inappropriate concubine to order the most expensive crap from the menu which was of course fatally overexpensive all the way down, anyways. Most people in the dining hall already stank linke snobbish capitalists, and the good old Quinn would have thrown up all over the place in their midst. But now she was as degenerate as can be, thus she even enjoyed the foul odor of the place.

Now things were getting interesting, as James and Zoey were about to enter the dining hall, and Maître D' Maurice Lee[[95]] Maurice was really abhorrent, and this made things even a whole lot worse. Quinn and Logan noticed the approaching trouble and started hiding under the tables in order to avoid being seen by James and Zoey. Indeed, the blonds were absolutely clueless, and Maurice guided them to the same corner of the dining hall as Logan Reese and Quinn Pensky. But the creeps may have escaped for the moment, yet were they able to hide forever under the table, right between the legs of James and Zoey? The kitchen personal was really busy, and the waiters uncer the lead of Maurice Lee had to serve quite a few parallel tables.

Megan, still in the other window, announced gleefully, "girlfriend number two, the stage is yours!" She cackled brutally and introduced the waitress, "this is Hailey Steele from Lakewood Middle School, tonight an auxiliary waitress … by mere chance …" Of course, it was not really an accident, and Megan had manipulated things to get Hailey that job tonight. Now we were interested in James's reactions.

Hailey walked up to the table to Zoey and her companion, wondering "Jay Gee? Is that your 'little brother'?"

Zoey wondered, "who's that girl?"

James stammered helplessly, "I don't know … a girl I have never seen before!" This was of course by absolutely no means very credible for the living barbie girl.

Haley looked at her boyfriend with determination, and she yelled at him, "what? Never seen before? We have been together in …"

Megan announced girlfriend number three who did not just happen tolook like Lola Martinez, but was indeed her cousin, Victoria Vega from Silver Springs Middle School. And Megan also announced that Victoria had got an elder sister Trinidad who was better to known unto us as "Rebecca". So, this did make Lola and Rebecca cousins, didn't it? And the Hollywood diva had always denied to have known her before …, but indeed Megan had figured that Lola had even been the one to instigate Chase into hiring Trinidad as a fake girlfriend in order to make the blond Mary Sue jealous. OK, tonight, this parallel identity of Victoria's sister Trinidad was none of our business, as opposed to James and his side-by-side girlfriends which he had been dating simultaneously for how long? Megan did not really know an answer, but it did not matter all that much. She just reminded us of Cory's evil deed of dating her and Monica at the same time, and that James was due for some deeper embarrassment. Facing three of his girlfriends at the same time was quite a lot, maybe already too much for the tall blond rake to handle sanely. And Megan giggled when she remarked that this was by no means yet the end of the road. "Number Four …"

Jennifer Mosely, whom Zoey already knew as a parallel girlfriend of Lance Rivers last year when the two of them had been dating, was also here, as she had been employed tonight as a wardrobe lady. Zoey did apparently think that she was hallucinating, as it was impossible to believe that she was once more a substitute for the same girl, or vice versa. Thus she asked Jennifer four times whether this was real, and she even pinched herself in order to escape from this nightmare, alas, it was no dream or hallucination at all.

James was probably aware of the fact that Zoey and jennifer had already been sharing once the same boyfriend, and he was looking for a mouse hole in order to hide, well, he was of course too tall for a mouse hole, but anyways … He could not really talk to the upset girls by whom he was now cornered, and he decided to take cover by diving underneath the dining table, much to the dismay of the Quinn Pensky and Logan Reese who were still stuck there, committing unspeakable abominstions. Of course, James had not taken the possibility of people hiding under the table into accound, and now he was even more consternated. Ultimately, the force of the impact of his action brought the dining table to turn over, making everything on it slide off its edge and plummet mercilessly to the ground.

It should be almost needless to say that the administratioi of Vaccaro, including especially Maître D' Maurice, was not actually pleased by the rumour and the havoc occurring in his sacred dining halls. The other guests had been alerted as well, and some of them even started to panic and shout for the boss of the house. There was no other option left for Maurice Lee but calling for the police, and, ironically, officer Vega, the most important police officer of Los Angeles, was also the father of Victoria Vega, one of the many current girlfriends of James Garrett.

Zoey Brooks was now distracted and not oonly thinking about her adulterous date James. Seeing Quinn and Logan rejoicing disgustingly in the dirt was more for her to be upset about than ever imagined in her worst nightmares. And now there was something else to catch Zoey's eyes, and more precisely, she noticed a man whome she remembered as Coco Wexler's boyfriend Carl, dining with another woman. Enraged by James's reckless adultery, Zoey thundered some harsh words into Carl's face, just in order to recognise that the other woman was no other than Coco in disguise. The latter had once worked as a toilet woman at Vaccaro, but fired for inappropriate behaviour and was thuis a persona non grata.

Finally, officer Vega arrived in order to take care of everything. He especially recognised Carl as a recent bank robber and arrested him on site. Well, honestly, there had to be something wrong when a pathetically unsuccessful softball coach and a messy poor excuse of a dormitory adviser were able to date in a noble restaurant while the teachers of Pacific Coast Academy, the best paid of the state of California, were not in such a privilleged situation. Coco was arrested, too, as she was most likely a henchwoman of Carl, or so.

Tori Vega had to explain a lot unto her father who had not allowed her to date that rake. She would probably be grounded for some time now.

Zoey would have to answer some uneasy questions asked by stern Dean Rivers, as she had not only left the camous without permission, but also caused some trouble off the campus. Of course Quinn and Logan were in the same boat now. James, on the other hand, had seemed to find a way to escape and would not be seen again so soon near the campus of Pacific Coast Academy or elsewhere in Los Angeles. It turned out that he was the nephiew of popular Hollywood star Jeff Garrett[[96]], and that's where he had got all the money from, probably not exactly with his uncle's knowledge or approval.

Zoey would soon enough try to talk some sense into thoroughly brain-diseased Quinn Pensky who was shamelessly abused by Logan Reese, but she was equally sad because she would now not have a partner for the impending junior prom, and this appeared to make her infinitely sad. Maybe she would want to give Chase another chance, but this was unlikely as soon as she would hear about his former evil deed of hiring Trinidad Vega in order to make her jealous, one of the worst possible and abusive deeds … ever! And now that Zoey knew Victoria Vega, a new confrontation with Trinidad was most likely impossible.

Maybe something like _I win a date_ would be in order now? Carly's web show recently featured such a thing for her friend Charles Cornelius Gibson alias "Gibby",[[97]] but for Zoey, it was better a really good suggestion. She was already deeply involved in design and tayloring of junior prom outfits, a really cumbersome job for someone not looking forward at all to her own junior prom.

* * *

** Chapter 16. Vertigo**

* * *

** 16.1. Coffee Cart Crash**

* * *

A little later, one of the greatest accidents occurred on the campus, caused by the loose mechanism that used to care for blocking and unblocking the wheels of the coffee cartt run by some jerk named Calvin. If Quinn had been in complete control of her mental abilities, which was no longer the case since having succumbed to the foul charms of Logan Reese, she would have been definitely able to repair the system and prevent accidents of the aforementioned sort. Talking about foul charms … Calvin was not much less of a jerk, and he had also tried once to pervert and corrupt Quinn Pensky by making her the customer of the week, a girl selected for gratis coffee and skipping the usually extremely long queue in front of the coffee cart for seven days straight.[[98]] Fortunately, Quinn had been able to resist, but this was now all for naught after having been corrupted beyond recognition by Logan.

Whatever … during one of Calvin's happy hours, Lola Martinez, the careless diva, ran carelessly into the coffee cart because she had forgotten a straw. Happy hours were inevitably connected with chaos and panic, another sign for the extreme evilness of Calvin. So, the cart started rolling across the slightly inclined campus square, following the merciless physical laws of inertia, and it happened to hit Tipper, the evil wife of Dean Rivers, slamming her to the griound and almost knocking her out. Tipper was one bad vixen, I tell you. She was opposed to her husband having fun with video games[[99]], and many more. I am sure that she had tried to get him killed by suggesting Coco to show up with a lion in the headmaster office in order to get a salary promotion by making the dumb wench believe that the dean was a fan of everything that had to do with lions. Needelss to say, the dean had been hardly pleased by this. Unfortunately there was not yet a proof for Tipper having deliberately tried to kill her husbandm but he was certainly afraid of her wrath, and, as a consequence, made the coffee cart and coffee illegal at Pacific Coast Academy, both for teachers, students, and stuff. The stressed that the prohibition was equally valid for the dean himself.

The kids were little pleased and tried to run coffee bars in the secret. But this attempt was apparently doomed for failure, because the boys and rthe girls were now competing and rivaling over the coffee business. Due to my highly developed olfactory senses, I was able to smell the source of coffee stench all over the campus, and I had been able to denounce the culprits on site. But, inspite of claiming that the prohibition was equally valid for Dean Rivers himself, he did not stick to it, which was of course possible for me to smell from the entrance of the administrational building. As a consequence, I had to denounce the dean himself unto Leo Bradford, the aforementioned owner of Pacific Coast Academy.

The old creep came down on site and he was by absolutely no mean happy when hearing about Dean Rivers's violartion of his own prohibitions, as this was a really bad example for the youth. Dean Rivers tried to look for gazillions of poor excuses, but it was now impossible for him to save his own office. Leo Bradford could not help firing the inept headmaster. Another reson for doing so was Rivers's lack of the ability to get his own marriage under control and to let his wife implicitly rule over Pacific Coast Academy which was absolutely unbearable. Bradford was very inert with respect to new social trends, thence he had been opposed to letting girls study at Pacific Coast Academy for the lonbgest time, so even more was he opposed to letting a woman rule over it, be it rthe psychopathic wife of Dean Rivers or any other. Needless to say, the school was now desperately wanting a new headmaster, and this was not very hard to find for Leo Bradford, more precisely, he had chosen a certain Mr. Pal, former principal of nearby James K. Polk middle school, an old cpmrade from the times in Vietnam. Mr. Pal was widowed and his mother was already dead, so there were not many potential problems, as opposed to the times of Dean Rivers.

* * *

** 16.2. Lame Science Classes**

* * *

As already mentioned, Quinn Pensky's — at least before getting corrupted beyond recognition by Lola Martiinez and definitely before getting shamelessly abused and seduced by Logan Reese — scientiofic prowess was by absolutely no means the result of the high standards of Pacific Coast Academy, but of the power of her tween dreams which she had lost nowadays.

Science classes at Pacific Coast Academy had, on the contrary, been lame, and the teachers were as incompetent as can be. I had already experienced this truth during my first visit here under the covver of the pseudonym Howard Paige, for, inspite of not being too competent, it had been so totally evident that Mr. Beringer did not know much about what Quinn had been talking about, and he was definitely all the way unable to explain the little things he knew to the kids. This time around, he was teaching the juniors about the laws of kinetic and potential energy. Quinn Pensky suggested a trip to a nearby rollercoaster in order to let the kids experience the exchange of energy in a gravitational field, dfor otherwise it was quite unlikely to get the kids interested in the wonders of gravitation and stuff, something of which Quinn and Mindy had been experts for quite some time already. Beringer was unable to avoid giving in, and he was scheduling a trip to the biggest roller coaster in the world, residing on Mystic Mountain not far from Los Angeles. It was the infaous Spine Twister. More precisely, there were two roller coasters over there, the other one being known as the Demonator. Megan Parker had been there with the boobs like two years ago,[[100]] and it had been a truly great experience for her. That was accidentally the place where Megan had seen James Garrett for the first time, and that creep was now fortunately gone, and that was better for good.

While this was certainly great for many a kid, Michael Barret was suffering from vertigo, and thus he was not really willing to make it up there in order to learn more about gravitation. But even worse than the horror trip in a rollercoaster would be the humiliation suffered from the hands of his fellow pupils, especially his falsest of all false friends, Logan Reese, the very definition of jerk. There was no doubt left that Logan had spread the news about Michael's phobie — really only one out of so many. Even Lola saw herself compelled to bite the dandy's juicy earlobe bleeding, unfortunately she had not been biting hard enough.

* * *

** 16.3. Michael's Phobias**

* * *

Alas, the most disappointing person was beyond any trace of disagreement his falsely so-called "girlfriend" Lisa Perkins, really, where had that stupid lass been all the time when Michael was in trouble? And now she even blackmailed Michael into trying to lose his fears of a ride in the rollercoaster. A year ago, Michael had saved — or so it was believed — Lisa perkins from a stray race cart driven by Chase Bartholomew Matthews[[101]] This, of course, is a totally absurd reason for being someone'sgirlfriend, as even understood by Samantha Puckett.[[102]] And then where had Lisa been when Michael had been tied to a park bench because he wanted to prove to be like master illusionist Henry Doheny?[[103]]

Hey, there was a really cool idea, as Megan Parker knew master escape artist Henry Doheny very well.[[104]] She had been able to make him drop into a paralysis undistinguishible from death by vulgar medics, and she had been able to revive him from his tomb the third day. Or maybe Dogheny had been really dead … Megan would sure tell me the details — some day — but for the time being, they did not matter. Fact was that Doheny had hardly been afraid of big heights, he would have tied himself with his back to a rollercoaster and freed himself before … so all that was needed was to inform Doheny with the help of Megan.

Michael's crush on Lisa Perkins before the life-saving event, as described by Chase Bartholomew Matthews, reminded me a lot of that of Wendy Gellar on Drake Parker. I suggested Wendy to take care of Michael and tear him loose from Lisa Perkins. As Michael's prom date she would have easy access to the prom plannings where Drake Parker was deeply involved. Michael and Wendy were certainly able to write a tune for Drake to perform upon the prom concert.

* * *

** 16.4. Doheny at PCA**

* * *

And, indeed, there had been no problem to get the grandmaster of illusionism and of escape arts to our campus, not just because Megan had saved Doheny's career back then and was now still very influential, but also especially because Dean Rivers was no longer in office and Dean Pal, almost an agesake of Doheny, was a big fan of him. Pal and Doheny were talking a lot about the good old times.

The star of the variety stage for over half a century, nowadays busy at Las Vegas in the state of Nevada, promised to perform some cool escape tricks involving the Spine Twister, as already agreed upon with the company running the Mystic Mountain amusement park. For them, of course, it was one big promotional action, probably their greatest during the whole last decade.

And, suddenly, Michael's fears of the rollercoaster were all forgotten, as he was up to doing the same thing as Doheny, freeing himself from a rollercoaster cart before time running out and … I better did not imagine.

And, even better, Michael Barret was now about starting to realised how much she had been nothing but a jerk to him, all the time after he had saved her life. But he was still not ready to trash her, as he should have done many months ago. Alas, the tide was high, for prom was getting closer and closer, and there was hardly a way for Michael Barret to survive much longer by Lisa's side without going completely insane, no matter what.

But even more than escaping from the rollercoaster cart, Michael Barret was interested in Doheny's illusion trick involving those clacker. That was going to be interesting …

* * *

** Chapter 17. The Wake Of Junior Prom**

* * *

** 17.1. Production Of Prom Outfit**

* * *

Prom night was going to be very close to the end of the academic year, so, little wonder, the kids were already making plans for the summer break, in most cases their last one from which they would return to PCA.

Zoey's dad had encountered the CEO of Chambrolay, one of the world's hugest chain of hotels. This had allowed him to arrange a job as a life saver for Zoey Brooks at the beach of Maui, one of the most visited islands of the state of Hawaii. Even more, she was allowed to take someone along with herself.

But was the blond Mary Sue really in the mood of making it to Hawaii and take someone along, after the disastrous evening at Vaccaro? Certainly, she would have loved to go to prom with James Garrett, but that had been before the dinner over there and the revelation of his many girlfriends at the same time. So the barbie girls was left without a prom partner, all of a sudden, buts she had to design and sew all the prom gowns and prom tuxedos for the other participants, which was really annoying from front to back.

Fortunately, Claire Sawyer, the "shark" often hired by Megan Parker, knew someone able to assist Zoey during the tedious job of designg and sewing dozens of gowns and suits, a certain Jerome Crony, the only guy in the sewing club of her school videlicet James K. Polk.

* * *

** 17.2. Olivary Biallo**

* * *

The arrival of the sewing slave on our campus was like a big shock for some of them, especially for MichaelBarret. The clacker freak was apparently consternated to the death, and he screamed like for his life "Olvary Biallo!" So, what was going on?

Actually, three years ago, Olivary Biallo had been the middle school dance partner of Michael Barret, arranged by some computer. Just to get it right, it had been a boys-and-girls dance. But back then, girls were such a minority at Pacific Coast Academy, as already seen when talking about the cheerio dilemma of the past, that many girls from nearby schools had been invited as well. Jerome Crony must have applied as well, ignoring that it was a call for girls only. Well, maybe the whole sewing club was there, and Olivary Biallo alias Jerry Crony was the only boy in the sewing club … oh well! In any case, Michael had been annoyed to no end by the presence of Olivary alias Jerry Crony. Now, the intruder had indeed not forgotten about the events of teh past, and he yelled "Michael, my friend!" Michael apparently refused to see Crony as a friend. But the guest insisted in talking again to his former dancer partner, and he claimed that Michael had broken his promis to Farfalla. Three years ago, Michael had been spending time with some girl of that name, probably no more a sister of Jerry Crony as Olivary was a name of his. Well, according to some foreign customs, Michael had implicitly promised to marry that Farfalla.

Lisa Perkins was upset when hearing about this, and now it was finally her decision to trash promise breaker Michael Barret on site. "Gi back to your Farfalla! I am so done with you!"

Megan and Drake showed up. The latter was going to visit the prom hall in order to evaluate it for the prom concert. Megan whispered a few words into Drake's ears, and the jerk walked up to Lisa Perkins and asked her to sing something, as she was a former semi-finalist of _America Sings_[[105]]. Lisa smiled and sang voluntarily, and she started to flirt with the star guitarist right in front of the eyes of Michael, and also of Wendy Gellar. The latter sighed deeply, for now she could sympathise completely with Michael Barret, and of course she did not lose any minute starting to comfort the clacker cracker. That was really a perfect match, and I had to sigh for relief. Drake and Lisa was no less of a great deal, which became obvious when Drake accompanied the mulata's voice with his guitar performance. They were like the sysygies of aeions described in the works of second century philosopher Valentinus of Alexandria, as opposed to the perverted abuse of the term for attracting opposites, the biggest abomination in the history of mankind, as best seen in the case of the thoroughly vulgar and decadent relationship of Logan Reese and Quinn Pensky.

* * *

** 17.3. The Switch Stick**

* * *

Alas, if the scene between Drake and Lisa had not been enough in order to make Michael understand how dangerous and mean Lisa was to him, had always been, and would always be, until the bitter end.

A few weeks ago, Michael's father had gifted him a car, but it was not really a new one … far from it! The car was maybe from the seventies or eighties, and it was stick switched, while Michael Barret was only accustomed to automatic control. But he definitely wanted to make it to the junior prom in his own car, although it was certainly quite possible to make the way to the prom hall on foot without any motorised vehicle. Maybe he should have borrowed a car from Spencer Shay, but that was a totally different affair. Josh Nichols, proficient with a stick switch since he had bought a very old car from Stan, the greatest among the vendors of used cars in San Diego county[[106]], a car suggested by Megan Parker. But Michael wanted to do it on his own. Alas, his fear of stick switches was no less than his fear of roller coasters, or of bears in Yosemite Park. Lisa Perkins had never allowed him to express his fears and had shamelessly looked down on him because of them, inspite of delaring hypocritically that she had loved him, which had of course never been even remotely the case.

And now Michael was stuck in his old new car which he had driven straight against a tree standing in the middle of the campus. He had already got Hallucinations of an old Japanese guy named Mr. Takato who wanted to teach him driving a switch stick car in the _Zen And The Art Of Driving_ style. Well, at least many people would deem him hallucinating, but they did't understand who or what Mr. Takato is really, nor would they ever be able to.

But at least Wayne "Firewire" Gilbert, a fan of comic book heroes from the _Marvel_ and _DC_ series[[107]], was trying hard to solve the riddle by comparison with his twodimensional idols. One of Wayne's greatest idols — next to some Doctor Doom — had been a certain Doctor Strange. And Wayne knew a lot about that hero, using his knowledge in order to compare Takato to said figure.

* * *

** 17.4. Textile Creation**

* * *

So, Zoey Brooks was stuck with that new assistant sewer named Jerome Crony, but also known as Olivary Biallo, and she was really scared because of her unpleasant memories of aforementioned middle school dance with Michael barret. This did not make it easy for mthe blond Mary Sue to gain some consequence, and now she was moaning even more than ever before about her insane burden of creating dozens of gowns and tuxedo crap for the party.

Crony had to admit to having had troubles fessing up to his girly hobby, especially to his fake friends William Loomer and Buzz Rodriguez. The three of them had been a gang of merciless bullies during their whole middle school time, which of course did not exactly make Zoey more benevolent. Of course, Crony had just been in that gang with Billy Loomer in order to cover his unmanly tendencies. Zoey shook her head upon that absolutely inappropriate cowardice, and she pushed him into fessing up as soon as possible, against his pleas to sttay anonymous and to get Zoey credited fully as the solo creator of the prom outfits, from head to toe. But that was not acceptable for Zoey, so she forced Crony to accompany her to the prom dance and confess to being a textile creator, in front of all those for whom he had ade all the work. Crony tried to run away, but Zoey would not let him escape.

Strangely, Jerry Crony fessed now up to something else, more precisely, he had been coming tio the middle school dance on order to take a look at those fascinating backpaks designed by Zoey. Those had been sold at James K. Polk by a certain "Backpack Boy", back then a stalker and wannabe boyfriend of future lawyer Claire Sawyer. In other words, Mindy Crenshaw had been able to get Zoey's designs sold at other schools without even Zoey noticing, and that was really a shock for the blond Mary Sue. If she ever stumbled again into my remote relative, the latter would get to hear something.

* * *

** 17.5. The Buffet**

* * *

Of course the prom participants would inevitably go hungry and thirsty during the celebrations, and for that reason, there was a buffet booth, rather, several of them, and some of us middle school kids were selected to run it, but usually just in order to carry stuff from Sushi Rox over to the prom hall.

But I had got the idea to prepare some dips for the even, and Megan Parker knew some more perfect recipes. My favourite was mediterranean tapenade, a mixture of squished capers, garlic, and olives. Megan in turned had got quite some experience for red salsa.[[108]]

Of cpurse I had to check with Kazu, anyways, and it was really evident that the Japanese guy and his sushi bar were stuck in a quagmire of troubles. More precisely, he was unable to pay the fire insurance. Two years ago, the Japanese pub had been set ablaze due to a misunderstanding between Zoey's gang and Kazu, rendering the whole pub dysfunctional. The kids had had a bad conscience and helped somewhat with the reconstruction, but Dean Rivers had insisted in a fire insurance, and this was too much for Kazu to handle on the long run, as the insurance companies were by no means convinced of our security standards, for good reason — or so did I reckon, already since the aforementioned viositors' days.

But there was already someone ready to jump in and help Kazu, and this was Wing Lee[[109]], the commander of an imperium of Chinese restaurants in California, especially Wok Star. But what had she really been up to? Maybe Wing Lee and Kazu would have been be a cool couple? Now there was an idea …

* * *

** 17.6. Mindy's Threat**

* * *

My former favourite remote relative had nor been showing up here for quite a while, so I seemed safe on the campus, but a true Melinda Crenshaw was certainly not someone to give up really soon, given that she was most likely also trying to get back not only at Zoey and at me, but also at Josh, Drake, and Megan.

And my senses suggested that prom night would be the right time for my secons cousin to strike and land a deadly blow, whatever that meant …

I also worried about Chase Bartholomew Matthews who was now really all left out since the reconcoliation of his former friends with Vincent Blake. There was no chance for him left to avoid being alone at or having to miss out on junior prom. But maybe the perfect partner for him was already approaching …

* * *

** Chapter 18. Junior Prom Night**

* * *

** 18.1. Let the music play!**

* * *

Drake and his band were now busy positioning the instruments, and Lisa Perkins already demonstrated her voice as the new lead singer of the band, and probably the most impressive one, ever, and least infinitely better than any lead singer before in that band.

Even Gustavo Rocque, the record producer, was totally keen on this valuable addition to the band, one of the greatest reinforcements ever recieved by any boy band during the last decade or so, the period when Gustavo had been a big number in the record business. Alas, something he was not so glad about was the steadily growing competition, with new and most promising composers Michael Barret and Wendy Gellar whose cooperation was going to improve. But they were just decent composers, and writing lyrics was not their domain of supreme competence, let alone experience. But for this big prom event, Drake had to come up with his own new songs, and Gustavo had declared to refrain rigorously from intervening.

But the solution for their problem was already close. Michael Barret just needed to ask his former best friend Chase Bartholomew Matthews and welcome him back after having parted with him over the question as of whether to forgive Vincent Blake or not. Yet this was not an easy task, for Chase's wounds kept on aching. Ashley's anger against Chase had started to relax as of recently, but that was not because the little diva showed any trace of pity for the poor bushy head. The drama queen was really stone cold, but she had heard about Chase's latest activities as a playwright, and she was very interested in being the main rôle of a movie based on his upcoming great work _The Beginning Of A Romance_[[110]]. Of course there needed to be a producer for such a movie, but this was not hard to find, given that Logan Reese's dad was pretty much the czar of Hollywood. But getting the rôle was pretty much impossible for the excessively gifted tween actress in the case of being excruciatingly hostile to the playwright.

But this had got some side effects for others, especially for Lola Martinez, envisioned proim date of Vincent Blake. The two of them had already booked a prom dinner in nearby Pete And Sam, but now it was clear that Vince had been using the criolla for the sole purpose of getting back at Chase, and that was not tolerable by any stretch whatsoever for the hot Latina starlet. Blake and Lola had been yelling at each other for a quarter of an hour, out on the campus, right before they were up to leaving for the restaurant, causing some excrutiatingly insane amount of public turmoil.

In this process, Lola had also admitted to having made Chase hire Trinidad Vega as a fake girlfriend in order to make Zoey jealous, and the blond Mary Sue had heard that and was now even more upset at Chase and Lola. For example, the latter's prom gown got ripped apart by the living barbie doll who, after all, had taylored it, leaving the diva almost naked in the middle of the campus and as the subject of jokes and laughter. There was no chance for this ever being forgiven. Strangely, Ashley Blake was the only one ready to comfort Lola, wonder why … after all, she had been the one to pull the strings behind the scenes.

And there was even some more reinforcement in sight in the field of song lyrics, videlicet Adelaide Singer, long-term friend of Wendy Gellar and of Megan Parker. The straw blonde from Pennsylvania had been called by my sweetie for help, and she had been able to fake a pass in order to make it up to here in time. Addie was one of the biggest living fans of the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe[[111]], and she had not hesitated to suggest to base the lyrics for Drake's new song for the prom nights, to be written in last minute, on Poe's wonderful _Dream Within A Dream_, of course with the massive collaboration of Wendy's compositional skills.

There were not many minutes to go until the prom celebrations were officially opened, and I was sent in by Kazu in order to arrange the banquet tables. Dustin Brooks was also present, he was in charge with the drinks … after the coffee cart affair, only cold softdrinks were allowed, and they had to be approved in advance by Mr. Bradford. Dustin admitted to missing Nicole Bristow whose dad made the best juices of the whole nation[[112]].

Dean Pal was already standing outside the doorframe, ready to declare prom officially open, when Adelaide Singer and Wendy Gellar anounced that they had fixed the songs for Drake. This was the salvation in right rime. And Addie admitted to having talked to some nice and lonely shrubbery-headed guy outside the prom hall which had helped her a lot in her attempts of patching the song lyrics.

* * *

** 18.2. The Party**

* * *

The many evil events of the last days had left a lot of juniors in an excessively stinky mood. But the prom band tried its best to make the kids forget about everything.

Stacey had been infinitely much less concerned by all the recent trouble concerning the breakups of Quinn and Logan, the ugly scenes between Zoey and Lola, and the troubles between Michael and Lisa, probably because she was stuck in other difficulties. Her parents had been arguing over her in her absense all the time, and this had been more or less the reason for the cancelled trip to Colorado for a skiing break. This reminded Josh a lot of the troubles that Walter and his mom had had about Josh, years ago, finally leading to their inevitable divorce. And all this was now about drawing Josh and Stacey even closer together than ever before. Drake made relentlessly fun of Stacey's lisp and all the crap, but Josh was finally able to ignore the jerk. At least he had finally made his way without getting just dragged along by his dandy step brother.

I had already been done mixing my tapenade, which was a perfect dip for nachos. Other dips offered included hummous, baba ghanoush, guacamole, ajvar, red salsa, and some mustard vinegrette. Drake and Josh would not touch them, fearing one of Megan's pranks behind all of it. But muy sweetie did not even care, as she was busy with more important things than the boobs's presence at this prom night, and she would only show up tomorrow in order to go shopping with Wendy and Adelaide.

Talking about Wendy — there she was, right by Michael Barret's side, and she talked him into making up with Chase Bartholomew Matthews. This was of course the result of Adelaide's efforts as well. Addie kept sweeping Chase all over the dancing floor, pushing him slowly into Michael's direction. So this problem was about to be fixed.

Zoey was actually dancing with Jerome Crony alias Olivary Biallo, and I even had to give her some of the tapenade stuff which she liked an insane lot. Her partner was very nervous, because he was still expected to fess up to being a hobby taylor, and that had to be during the few hours to come until everyone and his dog was going to leave or fall asleep on the prom floor or get lulled into oblivion by Drake's horrible music … whatever! Actually, Zoey poked him all the time in order to get him to fess up as soon as only possible, but this did not work out in any way.

Logan Reese was also not much touched by the break up with Quinn. He had only abused her anyways in order to get her to do his homeworks and allow him to go to a good college for which his father would have paid. This would allow him to hanker after infinitely more girls in an even more insane manner. Otherwise Logan would have been forced to earn his own money, and the dandy was too lazy for that. The college of his choice would have been Californian Institute For Technology in nearby Pasadena which happened to be the school where grandpa Reese had taught chemistry for over three decades.[[113]] Quinn was just welcome for this venture, as she was very well known among the staff of that university, for various reasons. For example, one of their recent graduates, a certain Cal[[114]] — probably just a nick name chosen because of his studies at "Caltech" — was Quinn's upstream provider with radioactive stuff, a probably illegal business … whatever! Logan had never cared about Quinn, only made fun of her and abused her mercilessly, so why bother, there were certainly other respectable concubines to be found later on. For the time being, he made out with oe of his more suited girlfriends: Miranda Franklin, better known as "Makeout Mandy"[[115]], the hot blonde prima ballerina of the cheerleading squad, certainly a girl most adapted to Logan's taste — dumber than crap, exactly like Logan Reese.

Quinn Pensky, on the other hand, had decided in time to skip that prom night in order to dedicate herself to motr useful thing, such as mixing some more bubbly liquids with the result of blowing up or causing toxic fumes, depending on her mood, in order to create the next big chemical. Usually, she would thus not have appeared at all, had the not been challenged in the right moment by …

My breath froze when I saw my second cousin walking in. "Melinda!" I would have preferred to pretend to not know her, but this was now impossible due to the infinite shock. Mindy Crenshaw giggled manically, in a way that was worse than the usual cackle of Wayne Gilbert.

Drake stammered, wondering about the "Creature"'s presence. He had suffered infinite pains from her presence during the last year, and this time she was about to ruin his concert. Honestly, this fear was thoroughly justifies, as was mine of Mindy's infinite wrath because I had not exceuted her plan to get back at Zoey Brooks. I tried to hide under soime table, but Zoey grabbed me by the collar and grunted, "she is your cousin or something like that, so do something about it!"

Josh whispered something into Stacey's ears, probably presenting Mindy as hi ex girlfriend or so, something which did not make Stacey feel exactly more comfortable. But of course he had to tremble all over the place as well. Nothing good was to be expected from her by anyone in here.

I closed my eyes and walked up to the "creature". My heart was beating like a steam-driven sledge hammer, and my mind was like a bee hive. Mindy's anger was without limits, and she yelled at me incessantly. Fortunately, I was not able to understand her words, anyways. Zoey Brooks pitied me and tried to intervene, which was not easy, for her, and she could just push me under some table, making me trip and end up with my nose covered with ajvar. Maybe we should have stuck to bell peppers instead of jalapeno pods when preparing the spreads, for the stuff was now about burning in my overly sensitive nose like hell fire. But at least I was no longer directly exposed to my raging second cousin, yet it was by no means obvious that I would be left in peace down here for much longer.

Mindy was making wild announces about how much we all would have to regeret her expulsion that had occurred four years ago, and that sounded even cool, for it was almost like my infinite talk about impending dystopia, and apparently Mindy had not been my favourite relative for the longest time. But blowing up the campus was definitely not a nice and elegant way to get back at everything. Mindy wanted, before anything else, get Quinn Pensky to gfive up on research and stay out of her way towards the nobel prizes which she wanted top win before turning twenty-five. Fortunately, our resident geek princess was out on the campus or in her secrewt laboratory somewhere deep beneath the residence halls.

All of a sudden, Wayne Gilbert alias "Fire Wire" stumbled in and asked, "hey! I've heard little explosions a few hours ago, and according to Dr. Doom[[116]], this means that the end is nigh!"

The explosions had been caused by Quinn's mini bombs, tested half a day ago,a nd had nothing to do with Mindy's sudden appearance … hell, they were correlated, but I would not know about this until much later. Mindy and Quinn were both developping radioactive mini bombs and competing for this reason, probably with the result of blowing up everything standing anywhere between them.

Mindy confirmed that she was here in order to put an end to this miserable place, using the powers of her brain, and she had planned this long ago, and she even showed Wayne her plans and sketches.

Wayne was astonished and replied, "you must be Mr. Doom!" He kept on cackling mercilessly.

Mindy insisted in being Mrs. Doom, if anything at all, because she was a girl, something Wayne refused to believe, for he still imagined all successful scientists to be male. But, fortunately she had now got something tro discuss about, and the two of them disappeared from the prom hall.

Most of the kids were both shocked because of Melinda's appearance and relieved due to her departure, along with unpopular Wayne. Drake was cold enough to just continue as if nothing had happened, and his music brought the other kids to continue the celebrations.

Zoey shook her head, but she walked back to her usual business of celebrating the prom night. Midnight was close, and I was forced to return to my dormitory by then like all middle school kids working here as servants. Yet before that point, Zoey interrupted the whole event. "Attention! Jerry Crony, my assistant, has to make a very important announcement! Jerry, get it done~" She prevented the weirdo once more from slouching away, and poked him until he told everyone about his secret, videlicet his membership in the textile creation club and his ambitions of becoming a infinitely famous fashion designer. This announce triggered a huge amount of applause.

But now it was too late for me, just as for Wendy, Ashley, Dustin, and so on. Yet I did not stop wondering in some infinite loop what Mindy and Wayne were now up to.

* * *

** Chapter 19. Drake is Elvis.**

* * *

Finally, the whole prom crap was over, and everyone had fallen asleep, although the sun was now already heating up the campus inspite of the fact that the juniors needed to cool down upon the heated events of the night.

Megan arrived at dawn, and she had changed her plans rigorously for the events of the night, especially the intervention of Mindy and her repeated threat against Pacific Coast Academy. Wendy and Ashley would be disappointed — or so would he have thought. But this was noit really the case, as Wendy was busy with her new overboy, Michael Barret, as much as Adelaide was hiding behind the shrubs with her new consort, Chase Bartholomew Matthews … behind the shrubs, you know, because of the stuff growing wildly on Chase's absolutely disorderly head.

Megan was accompanied by her oboe, and we made a really quick duet with my piano, playing _Dies Iræ — Dies Illa_ from Giuseppe Verdi's _Requiem_. This was a wonderful song about the impending dystopia and the judgment after life, unfortunately based on a monotheist ideology Megan and I had left behind long since. However, Megan had been able to match that powerful funeral chant with orphic eschatology and its most powerful concept of metempsychosis.

A lot of this ancient belief had not been understood as it had just been traded by outsiders, such as Pindar or Plato, let alone Euripides, while the so-called golden orphic tablets[[117]] were a real pain to make sense of, well, atleast for people lacking the supreme inspiration of one Megan Parker. So, how powerful was her inspiration really … at least it had been enough to make Henry Doheny appear to have raised himself from the dead, and that was so much already. Beyond any kind of doubt, only someone possessed by a truly divine spirit was able to do that, and this made me wonder how I had deserved Megan.

Now that I have mentioned it … yeah, metempsychosis was a very interesting concept, all the way, and the ancient Orphics, forerunners of Megan, had done very well incorporating it into their world view, given its unique advantages over the boring imagination of afterlife forced upon mankind by Christian churches.

So, what would a new incarnation, caused by either divine wrath or mercy, whichever way one likes to see it it, have looked like? Basically, it should have been in the similar veins as the old one, but with the potential of refraining from repeating the same mistakes.

That's why Megan had concluded that Drake had once been another rock star, yet there had already been so many of them during the last decades who had died before the birth of Drake Parker. Or maybe it was not even necessary to die according to the flesh in order to pass into another body, there were so many other ways to "die". According to Heraclite, souls died by turning into water, whatever that meant exactly. In any way, the concept of a soul using a body as a vehicle was a cool one, for it was then possible to exit an old one and leave it behind upon whim and try out a new one, and then to return possibly if it is still unoccupied.

As aforementioned, Elvis Presley was one of the most renowned forerunners of Drake Parker, or had been, and there were still rumours abounding about Elvis not having died the way he had disappeared from mankind, but that he had just been hiding. Well, he would have been quite old by the time Drake was a young adult, but around his birth, the rock legend had not yet been that old if still alive according to the flesh. Whatever, the idol had not been able to bear his own fame very well, along with girls and all the stuff coming along with it.

So Drake was now supposed to learn from Elvis Aron Presley's end and make it a lot better than his forerunner, wasn't he? And exactly that was the lesson that Megan Parker ahd tried to teach him all the time, deploying a variety of tricks and treats. Had they worked out? Well, that was not a question of the sort supposed to be easy to answer, but Megan had surely been close to desperate from time to time whenever she had seen Drake slip back into his old rôle as a reckless womaniser. She had hoped that Drake had left his old mistakes behind when she had spotted him dating Carlotta Donohugh, although thse hopes had not been but dust in the wind due to the aforementioned circumstances. But things were now apparently a lot better with Lisa Perkins than they had ever been with any other girl before, be it in Drake's life right now or in Elvis's life before the tragic event that either had or had not coincided with his biological death, but certainly had been the departure of his very soul.

Now Megan had come up with one interesting plan: She wanted to visit good old Graceland with Drake and Josh in order to rekindle her misguided elder brother's memories of his former life. This was certainly brilliant, but not totally easy as the site was well guarded, and many visitors were willing to jump through several blazing hoops in order to see the site of the legendary idol, especially those who still hoped to find him there alive and well. The existence of guards appeared to prove for some of them that Elvis was still hiding out there, but there were certainly a whole lot of other reasons. Megan had already talked to Gustavo Rocque, a great fan of Elvis Presley, but, unfortunately, Gustavo's demeanour was not exactly characterisable by supreme skills in diplomacy and political correctness. Fortunately, Megan's trump card was once more ready to strike, and that was Henry Doheny, a person that had known Elvis Presly alive, although this had been at the beginning of his own career … oh so long ago …. But Doheny was now once more an established giant in Las Vegas, down to Megan's idea of letting him rise from his tomb. This should have definitely persuaded the guards into letting Drake and Josh through.

On the other hand, I would not come with them, for I was not really keen on Drake, as already correctly anticipated by Megan. I was rather trying to talk some sense into my second cousin, but finding her would not be easy. She was now supposed to hang out an insane lot with Wayne Gilbert alias "Fire Wire" in order to study the undeniably looming connections between modern science and apocalyptic predictions of the ancient times, as reflected in Wayne's favourite science fiction cartoons. His all-time number one is a certain Doctor Doom, one of the most illustrous and mysterious figures of the whole toon world, the proper example for a demi-god at least.

Recently, I have compared Takato, a mysterious figure hanging out on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy, with another toon figure, and something told me that there was even a lot more divinity behind his appearance.

* * *

** Chapter 20. Finale**

* * *

** 20.1. Gustavo's Purchase**

* * *

I had been very much excited by the ongoing trip of Drake, Josh, and Megan to Graceland. Here at Pacific Coast Academy, the situation appeared to have been relaxed since the morning following prom night when Mindy and Wayne had started hanging out side by side almost all of the time.

Lola Martinez had not been suffering too much from her separation from Vince as such, although she was now most definitely done with Zoey Brooks, and that would not change for quite some time. But at least she was now able to concentrate more on her Hollywood career by making out with boys that were most suited for her purpose such as Spencer Danforth,[[118]] a teenage star actor who was a junior at nearby Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts and one of the best kissers on the set, thus particularly suited for Lola. Like Ashley, she was accepted into the cast of _Newtown High_,[[119]] a mediocre teenage soap by Malcolm Reese. Ashley was now hankering after Beck Oliver, apparently one of the best actors and kissers of our generation, or so it was told. Unfortunately she would have to do some work in order to pry him loose from his false girlfriend Jade West. But I was already reflecting about some blackmailing stuff … well, that was probably Megan's idea, whatever.

Zoey was now hanging out with Crony all of the time, and she did no longer care about her roomies, for she better concentrated on her career as a fashion designer. She had been offered an internship at various fashion labels, most prominently Mad Style in New York City, the city of cities, due to their cool vice president True Jackson, a girl even younger than Zoey.

So, Drake, Josh, and Megan were finally ready to take the ride back from there. I had already received several updates from here by means of e-mail, and Helen Baxter and Gustavo Roque who had come along with them were even more impressed. Unfortunately, the kids were not allowed to search through everything because of the guards and the remaining relatives of the first of the big rock and roll legends. Helen and Gustavo discussed a lot about the legacy of the star of the good old times, and due to the limitations imposed by the guard, Gustavo and Helen decided finally to do a rigorous yet not exactly unexpensive step and simply buy the whole estate off the hands of the Presley family. ranted, the legal heirs of the mansion were not willing to part with the memory-laden object, but Gustavo's earth-shaking voice was able to change their mind. And now Helen and Gustavo were making the estate in Graceland a wedding gift for Drake and Lisa. This way, the poprock couple would spend their whole honeymoon in the former home of the one legend.

* * *

** 20.2. Wedding In Graceland**

* * *

So, here we were gathered on the estate of Elvis Presley, nowadays of Drake Parker, in order to celebrate the greatest wedding in the history of weddings of rock stars.

Wagner's traditional _Bridal Chorus_ had long since grown moldy ... well, I still liked it, but her brother's wedding was just too special for Megan to miss out on the occasion of writing her own wedding concert and perform it on site with her solo oboe and my piano backup.

The ceremony was conducted by Father McCurdy, the world's fattest priest.[[120]]

Drake had never been known for much pondering, but things had changed since his first visit to Graceland, and Josh had been waking up each night — his usually rock-solid sleep[[121]] notwithstanding — down to Drake's excessive sleeptalking that was apparently stimulated by memories of his former life in the mansion in Graceland, his life as Elvis the legend. And living in this mansion would increase Drake's memories of Elvis more and more. But there was one question he would be asked so many times, but never be able to answer, and this was the one about whether Elvis had still been living in Gracekand after his offficial death. This was impossible because, as aforementioned, the soul of Elvis had gone astray arount the time of his official death and never since been concerned with the insignificant destiny of his wretched body, period.

What is some guy's wedding is also the other guy's divorce: Walter and Audrey's absurd marriage had finally gone down the drain, and it should of course never have been in the first place. Audrey had been cheating on her husband with Gavin Mitchell, one of the employees of Première Theater, for over a year already, and Walter had started hanging out with chubby dormitory adviser Coco Wexler after she got released for a fee from prison, as she had only been used by her former fiancé and was ready to witness against him at the court, as confirmed by Officer Vega.

So, you will wonder whether the wedding of a young rock couple, especially here in Graceland on the mansion of the legend, had not attracted incredibly much public attention. Well, it sure did, and quite much so. Jessica Warner[[122]] from _Backstage Hollywood_ had been the first to spread the news on the screen, and now she was alo trying to make it here. Of course there was also Jeremiah Trottman, the creep from the campus television workshop of Pacific Coast Academy, and there was Robert Shapiro, an annoying kid from nearby Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts, let alone Angela Crabtree from Lakewood School. But whoever tried to make it onto the estate in order to take pictures should have reflected the situation at least thrise, for Megan had of course aticipated the assault of hoards of annoying papparazzi and deplyed a huge bunch of traps. Robert Shapiro had tried to sneak in in order to take a picture of kissing Drake and Lisa, but he was now hanging head down from a rope, mocked even by his own marionette, which was named "Rex".

And if Drake and Lisa have not died yet, they are still living merrily in Graceland. Actually, Drake has started learning a lot in order to avoid going the same rail as his idol and former existence.

* * *

** 20.3. Conclusion**

* * *

It was now the right time for looking back to the point where it all had begun. There were those vague memories of the very first words I had heard about Megan, spoken by Melinda. Honestly, it is not even possible for me to tell you when that had been.

Back then, my sweetie had ben concerned by the wretched life of her elder brother, espoecially his thoroughly promiscuous attitude. Her attempt of fixing it in order to increase Drake's potential had sent us a long way, but Megan had finally achieved her goal, and in a way that rocked and rolled totally.

Our mission was now complete, and Megan would never since have to bother her brother anymore, giving her all the time to care about the two of us.

_**THE END**_

* * *

* * *

[[1] ]The age difference is inferred from second season _Drake & Josh_ using the following cues: In _Drew And Jerry_, Megan claims to be nine years old and a half, while in slightly earlier — both according to US airing date and production number — _Driver's License_, Drake and Josh try out for the drivers' license and admit to being sixteen or close to it.

Dan Schneider screws this up completely in season four, so this most severe blunder is herewith corrected.

* * *

[[2] ]The suspension is featured in _Drake & Josh_: _Honor Council_.

* * *

[[3] ]This breakup appears in _Drake & Josh_: _Mindy Loves Josh_

* * *

[[4] ]This bet is subject of _Drake & Josh_: _Who's Got Game_.

* * *

[[5] ]This concert is the subject of _Drake & Josh_: _The Storm_.

* * *

[[6] ]Lucy is a guest rôle in _Drake & Josh_: _Girl Power_ and _The Storm_, with a surname borrowed from the same actress's rôle in third-party owned _Girl Trash_.

* * *

[[7] ]Christine is from _Drake & Josh_: _The Storm_ with a surname borrowed from the same actress's rôle in third-party owned _Andy Parker, P.J._

* * *

[[8] ]Cory is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _Megan's First Kiss_, identified with an unportrayed karate-skilled cousin of Chase Matthews mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _The Great Vince Blake_.

* * *

[[9] ]Monica is a cameo in _Drake & Josh_: _Megan's First Kiss_ with a surname borrowed from the same actress's flashback cameos in third-party owned _Raising Hope_.

* * *

[[10] ]This is the anonymous cameo of Nathan Kress in _Drake & Josh_: _The Battle Of Panthatar_, credited by IMDB as Tooplin. The context of the episodes suggests that Toplin is the younger brother of Thornton Wheeler. According to rumours, this scene had been curtailed and become the base of Fredward's habit of stalking Carly in _The iCarly Show_.

* * *

[[11] ]Thonton Wheeler is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _The Battle Of Panthatar_

* * *

[[12] ]Maria is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _The Battle Of Panthatar_ with a surname borrowed from the same actress's in third-party owned _Make it or break it!_

* * *

[[13] ]Malcolm Reese is a guest character from _Zoey 101_: _Spring Break-Up_.

* * *

[[14] ]This insane jealousy is most evidebt in _Drake & Josh_: _Eric punches Drake._

* * *

[[15] ]Paige Howard is a guest character from _Zoey 101_: _Paige At PCA_.

* * *

[[16] ]This identifies Melinda Crenshaw with the same actress's guest rôle in _Zoey 101_: _Backpack_

* * *

[[17] ]This identifies Drake Parker with the same actor's autonymous guest rôle in _Zoey 101_: _Spring Fling_.

* * *

[[18] ]Michelle is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _Smart Girl_ with a surname borrowed from the same actor's rôle in third-party owned _Life_.

* * *

[[19] ]Wendy is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _Number One Fan_ borrowing a surname from the rôle of the same actress in third party owned _Camp Rock_. She is also identified with an unportrayed Wendy mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _Lola likes Chase._

* * *

[[20] ]Ashley Blake is from _Drake & Josh_: _Little Diva_.

* * *

[[21] ]Robert Carmichael is a cameo from _Drake & Josh_: _Treehouse_, identified with "Scooter" from _Zoey 101_: _Favor Chain_.

* * *

[[22] ]This identifies Katie from _Drake & Josh_: _Megan's New Teacher_ with Sandy Baldwin from _Zoey 101_: _Lola likes Chase._

* * *

[[23] ]Paul is a repeated cameo of season one _Drake & Josh_ with a surname borrowed from the same actor's rôle in third-party owned _La Mission_.

* * *

[[24] ]This repeated cameo Rina from first season _Drake & Josh_ with a surname borrowed from the same actor's rôle in third-party owned _Not In My Family_.

* * *

[[25] ]This is multiple cameo Scottie from first season _Drake & Josh_ with a surname borrowed from the same actor's rôle in third-party owned _Smallville_.

* * *

[[26] ]Devin Malone is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _The Guitar_.

* * *

[[27] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Spring Fling_

* * *

[[28] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Drake and Josh go Hollywood._!

* * *

[[29] ]This trip is described in _Drake & Josh_: _Drake and Josh go Hollywood_

* * *

[[30] ]This location appears in _Drake & Josh_: _Drake and Josh go Hollywood_, but also in _Victorious_: _A Film By Dale Squires_.

* * *

[[31] ]Allan Crimp is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _Really Big Shrimp_, and he is also mentioned in _Drake & Josh_: _Drake and Josh go Hollywood._

* * *

[[32] ]This is a third-party owned song by Drake Bell.

It is featured in _Drake & Josh_: _Really Big Shrimp_, but also heard in _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Alpaca_.

* * *

[[33] ]Daka is featured in _Drake & Josh_: _Really Big Shrimp_ and in _The iCarly Show_: _iPromote Techfoots_.

* * *

[[34] ]Helen's past career is alluded to in _Drake & Josh_: _Helen's Surgery_.

* * *

[[35] ]Cf. _The iCarly Show_: _iRue The Day_!

* * *

[[36] ]Cf. _The iCarly Show_: _iFight Shelby Marx_!

* * *

[[37] ]This is Mr. Bradford from _Zoey 101_: _Prank Week_ with a first name borrowed from some rôle of the same actor in some third-party owned movie.

* * *

[[38] ]Bert Berinbger is a cameo figure from _Zoey 101_: _Paige At PCA_ and _Roller Coaster_.

* * *

[[39] ]Nevel says so in _The iCarly Show_: _iGive Away A Car_.

* * *

[[40] ]Combover is a repeated cameo of _Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide_ with a firstname borrowed from a rôle of the same actor in third-party owned _Undeclared_.

* * *

[[41] ]The Oboe twins appear in _Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide_: _Shyness_ et alibi, and they are identified with the same actress's rôles in _Drake & Josh_: _Treehouse_, videlicet Addison and Alexandra Hoover.

The surname assigned below is taken from the same actress's rôle in third-party owned _The Bold And The Beautiful_.

* * *

[[42] ]The violinist has got a cameo in _Zoey 101_: _The Radio_

* * *

[[43] ]The violincellist has got a cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Hot Dean_

* * *

[[44] ]Greg Padillo is from _The iCarly Show_: _iHeart Art_.

* * *

[[45] ]This is a third-party owned song by Drake Bell.

* * *

[[46] ]Melanie Puckett is a one time character from _The iCarly Show_: _iTwins_.

* * *

[[47] ]Trisha Kirby is a guest character in _Zoey 101_: _Bad Girl_.

* * *

[[48] ]Addie Singer, the star from _Unfabulous_, is here identified with Addie, the cameo figire from _Drake & Josh_: _Honor Council_.

* * *

[[49] ]Malcolm Reese is a guest character in _Zoey 101_: _Spring Breakup_.

* * *

[[50] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Hands On A Blix Van_!

* * *

[[51] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Miss PCA_

* * *

[[52] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Logan gets cut off_!

* * *

[[53] ]Topher Lame is a guuest character from _Zoey 101_: _Son Of A Dean_.

* * *

[[54] ]Charles Galloway and Mr. Hodges appear in _Zoey 101_: _The Curse Of PCA_.

* * *

[[55] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Rumors Of Love_!

* * *

[[56] ]Custodian Banville is a cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Silver Hammers_ et alibi.

* * *

[[57] ]Seamas Finnegan is a guest rôle in _Zoey 101_: _Alone At PCA_

* * *

[[58] ]This Danny is a guest character in _Zoey 101_: _Quarantine_.

* * *

[[59] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Drippin' Episode_!

* * *

[[60] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Lola likes Chase_!

* * *

[[61] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Little Beach Party_!

* * *

[[62] ]Jessica from Colorado is mentioned in _Drake & Josh_: _Drake and Josh go Hollywood._

* * *

[[63] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _First Crush_!

* * *

[[64] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Fake Roommate_!

* * *

[[65] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Alone At PCA_!

* * *

[[66] ]This character from the final season of _Zoey 101_ is here identified with various named and anonymous rôles — usually cameos — of the same actor in other shows such as _Zoey 101_: _Quarantine_, _The iCarly Show_: _iLike Jake_, _Unfabulous_: _The Gray Area_, _Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide_, and _Drake & Josh_: _Honor Council_.

* * *

[[67] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _First Crush_!

* * *

[[68] ]Cf. _The iCarly Show_: _iPromote Techfoots_!

* * *

[[69] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Favor Chain_!

* * *

[[70] ]His aversion to sauces is stated in _Zoey 101_: _Quinn misses the Mark,_ and already insinuated in _Zoey 101_: _Zoey's Ribs_.

* * *

[[71] ]Courtney is a cameo from _Zoey 101_: _A Date For Quinn_.

* * *

[[72] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Silver Hammers_!

* * *

[[73] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Sheep Thrills_!

* * *

[[74] ]Faye Dunnaway is a cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Quinn misses the Mark._

* * *

[[75] ]This wish is mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _The Great Vince Blake_.

* * *

[[76] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Alpaca_!

* * *

[[77] ]Cf. _True Jackson VP_: _Keeping Tabs_!

* * *

[[78] ]This alludes to third-party owned song _These boots are made for walking._ by Nancy Sinatra.

* * *

[[79] ]Cf. _The iCarly Show_: _iLook Alike_!

* * *

[[80] ]Pam Puckett is a guest character form _The iCarly Show_: _iSams Mom_.

* * *

[[81] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Megan's First Kiss_!

* * *

[[82] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Pool Shark_!

* * *

[[83] ]This identifies cameo characters Joe the mechanic from _Zoey 101_: _Spring Fling_ with dummy Braxley from _The iCarly Show_: _iPromote Techfoots_.

* * *

[[84] ]Workout Dave is a cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoey_.

* * *

[[85] ]This is the school from from _Just Jordan_.

* * *

[[86] ]This school is mentioned in _Big Time Rush_: _Big Time Break_.

* * *

[[87] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Wrestling_!

* * *

[[88] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Logan gets cut off_!

* * *

[[89] ]This identifies Sarah from _Zoey 101_: _Silver Hammers_ with Kyla from _True Jackson VP_: _Flirting With Fame_.

* * *

[[90] ]This restaurant is mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoey_

* * *

[[91] ]This restaurant is featured in _Zoey 101_: _Dinner For Two Many_.

* * *

[[92] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Anger Management_.

* * *

[[93] ]This is alluded to in _Zoey 101_: _Pilot_.

* * *

[[94] ]The summer break labour for some uncle is mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _Dinner For Two Many_, yet the name of craftsman and unle Hank only appears in _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoey_.

* * *

[[95] ]This is a guest rôle from _Zoey 101_: _Dinner For Two Many_ with a surname taken from the same actor's rôle in some third party owned production.

* * *

[[96] ]Jeff Garrett is a cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Jet-X_.

* * *

[[97] ]Cf. _The iCarly Show_: _iWin A Date_

* * *

[[98] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Dance Contest_!

* * *

[[99] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Alpaca_!

* * *

[[100] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _The Demonator_

* * *

[[101] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Michael loves Lisa_!

* * *

[[102] ]Cfd. _The iCarly Show_: _iSaved Your Life_!

* * *

[[103] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Logan gets cut off_!

* * *

[[104] ]Doheny is a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _The Great Doheny_.

* * *

[[105] ]This show is mentioned in _The iCarly Show_: _iRock The Votes_.

* * *

[[106] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _A Dinner With Bobo_

* * *

[[107] ]Those series are all third-party owned.

* * *

[[108] ]Cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Peruvian Puff Pepper_!

* * *

[[109] ]Wing Lee is from _Victorious_: _Wok Star_.

* * *

[[110] ]This play is used in _The iCarly Show_:_iSaw Him First_.

* * *

[[111] ]Cf. _Unfabulous_: _The Toot_!

* * *

[[112] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Jet-X_ concerning Nicole's father!

* * *

[[113] ]Cf. _Zoey 101_: _Zoey's Tutor_!

* * *

[[114] ]"Cal" is a guest character from _The iCarly Show_: _iGo Nuclear_.

* * *

[[115] ]Mandy Franklin is mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoey_ and identified with a cameo Mandy from _Drake & Josh_: _Football_.

* * *

[[116] ]Dr. Doom is a third-party owned action conmic character from the _Marvel_ series.

* * *

[[117] ]Cf. e.g. Jane Ellen Harrison _Prolegomena To The Study Of Greek Religion_, Cambridge University Press 2010!

* * *

[[118] ]This Spencer is a guest character from _Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide_: _School Plays_ and by absolutely no means to be confused with Spencer Shay.

The family name is borrowed from the same actor's job in third-party owned _High School Musical_.

* * *

[[119] ]This show is mentioned on various occasions in _Big Time Rush_.

* * *

[[120] ]Father McCurdy is mentioned in _The iCarly Show_: _iWant A Record_.

* * *

[[121] ]Josh's sleep is characterised best in _Drake & Josh_: _Honor Council_.

* * *

[[122] ]Jessiaca Warner is a multiple cameo in _The iCarly Show_: _iFix A Pop Star_ et alibi.


End file.
